Rapacious

By Deane Barker • • tags: definition •
Updates
This content has been updated 1 time since it was first published. The last update happened .

Definition: Greedy. Obsessed with acquiring money or possessions.

It’s from the base word “rapine,” which means “to seize” in Latin. A few words in Latin that being “rap-” have similar meanings.

Why I Looked It Up

In an episode of Buck Rogers, a race of aliens was described as “the most rapacious savages in the galaxy.”

Update

Added on 2023-0706

From The Tyranny of Clichés:

It was Hofstadter who argued that the robber barons had found an ideological rationalization for their rapacious ways in Social Darwinism.

Links from this – The Tyranny of Clichés: How Liberals Cheat in the War of Ideas July 6, 2023
This is a sort of snarky book, but still very well-written. The author is tired of clichés that he believes the political Left has “captured,” but which he believes are simply not true. He spends the book deconstructing them. Some of the clichés the author is upset about (written in the form of...