Definition of "rape"

Ruin'd orphans of thy rapes complain.

1638, George Sandys, chapter XXII, in A Paraphrase upon Job

1712, Alexander Pope, The Rape of the Lock

Ellery Queen deals entirely in murders; you are not fobbed off, as you are with Mr. Leslie Charteris's Saint, with pablum about the rape of the dowager's emeralds, or the theft of the blueprint of the newest submarine.

1959, Dorothy Parker, “Ellery Queen: The New York Murders”, in The Portable Dorothy Parker, New York: Penguin, published 1976, pages 566–8

She worked under the great tapestry with its glowing but subdued tones—huntsmen with lofted horns had been running down a female stag. After the rape, leaving the grooms to bring the trophy home, they galloped away into the soft brumous Italian skyline; […]

1974, Lawrence Durrell, Monsieur or The Prince of Darkness: A Novel, London: Faber and Faber; republished in The Avignon Quintet: Monsieur, Livia, Constance, Sebastian, Quinx, London: Faber and Faber, 1992, page 23

Few of the Teleri were willing to go forth to war, for they remembered the slaying at the Swanhaven, and the rape of their ships.

1977, JRR Tolkien, The Silmarillion

Sat. Traytor, if Rome haue law, or we haue power, Thou and thy Faction shall repent this Rape. Bass. Rape call you it my Lord, to cease my owne, My true betrothed Loue, and now my wife?

c. 1588–1593 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Lamentable Tragedy of Titus Andronicus”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, [Act I, scene i]

The tale of the rape of Lucretia, for example, is hardly tellable - as many Roman writers themselves discovered - without raising the question of where seduction ends and rape begins; the rape of the Sabines puts a similar question mark over the distinction between rape and marriage.

2000 September 8, Mary Beard, The Guardian

I fled; but he pursued (though more, it seems, Inflamed with lust than rage), and, swifter far, Me overtook, his mother, all dismayed, And, in embraces forcible and foul Engendering with me, of that rape begot These yelling monsters […]

1667, John Milton, “Book II”, in Paradise Lost. […], London: […] [Samuel Simmons], […]; republished as Paradise Lost in Ten Books: […], London: Basil Montagu Pickering […], 1873,

Last April the media world exploded in indignation at the rape and beating of a jogger in Central Park.

1990 January 22, ‘Turning Victims into Saints’, Time

Castor and Pollux are one set of twins birthed by Leda after her rape by Zeus in swan form; […]

2013, William Butler Yeats, The Collected Works of W.B. Yeats Volume XIII: A Vision: The Original 1925 Version, Simon and Schuster

Where now are all my hopes? O, never more. / Shall they revive! nor death her rapes restore.

1636, G[eorge] S[andys], “(please specify the page)”, in A Paraphrase upon the Psalmes of David. And upon the Hymnes Dispersed throughout the Old and New Testaments, London: [Andrew Hebb […]]

Dr Ashok's eyes had a tendency to pop whenever he wanted to rape your attention.

1978, Gore Vidal, Kalki

It is six years since my just action to reclaim the armaments raped from here by the Lairds of Dalgetty and Tolly […] .

1983, Alasdair Gray, “Logopandocy”, in Every Short Story 1951-2012, Canongate, published 2012, page 136

Paridell rapeth Hellenore: Malbecco her pursewes: Findes emongst Satyres, whence with him To turne she doth refuse.

1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book III, Canto X”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie

A Princess rap’d transcends a Navy storm'd.

1718, Homer, translated by Alexander Pope, The Iliad

The prosecution case was that the men forced the sisters to strip, threw their clothes over the bridge, then raped them and participated in forcing them to jump into the river to their deaths. As he walked off the bridge, Clemons was alleged to have said: "We threw them off. Let's go."

2012 August 21, Ed Pilkington, “Death penalty on trial: should Reggie Clemons live or die?”, in The Guardian‎

"They taught us nothing but how to cheat, curse and abuse. I never killed in cold blood even if I was known as one of the most fearless fighters. Yes, I abducted several children, I robbed and beat, but I never raped."

2007, Kunda: The Story of a Child Soldier, page 51

I raped your richest roadstead—I plundered Singapore!

1892, Rudyard Kipling, Barrack-Room Ballads

They come out here in their perky little foreign cars, fifty pounds of American copper in each one, and tell us we're earth-raping monsters.

1996, Stephen King, Desperation

We've raped the land for power and possession / Two thousand years and all we'll have is a planetary toxic deathbed

2018, Power Trip, Armageddon Blues

It seems to me very clear that the rapes of Sussex were divisions already existing there when the Normans landed.

1888 March 20, Henry H. Howorth, in a letter to The Archaeological Review, volume 1 (March–August 1888), page 230

There is little, if any, doubt that the division of Sussex into six rapes had been carried out before the Conquest, though the term is not mentioned in any Old English record.

1971, Frank Merry Stenton, Anglo-Saxon England

These four castles dominated the Sussex rapes named after them; the fifth rape, Bramber, held by William de Braose, was in existence by 1084.

1997, Ann Williams, The English and the Norman Conquest, page 18

After the Industrial Revolution, it was discovered that rape also yields oil suitable for lubrication.

2001, Bill Lambrecht, Dinner at the New Gene Café, page 231

rape of Cistus

1682, John Ray, Methodus Plantarum Nova

With regard to this obligation, the Council, on 26 October 1971[,] also arranged for certain producers to be totally or partially exempted from it, either because their wine production is very low (less than 50 hectolitres in one marketing year), or because they deliver their rapes of grapes to oenological merchants, or because they make quality wines […]

1971, Bulletin of the European Communities