The act of despoiling a country in warfare

Usage examples of rapine.

The impunity of rapine had increased the boldness and numbers of the wild Isaurians: those robbers descended from their craggy mountains to ravage the adjacent country, and had even presumed, though without success, to besiege the important city of Seleucia, which was defended by a garrison of three Roman legions.

He vanquished the monster of Libya, the president Andronicus, who abused the authority of a venal office, invented new modes of rapine and torture, and aggravated the guilt of oppression by that of sacrilege.

Not eastern bombast, nor the savage rant Of purpled madmen, were they numbered all From Roman Nero, down to Russian Paul, Could grate upon my ear so mean, so base, As the rank jargon of that factious race, Who, poor of heart, and prodigal of words, Born to be slaves, and struggling to be lords, But pant for licence, while they spurn controul, And shout for rights, with rapine in their soul!

At the head of a tumultuary band, suited for rapine rather than for conquest, he suddenly broke onto the dominions of Constans, by the way of the Julian Alps, and the country round Aquileia felt the first effects of his resentment.

His unworthy favorites, enriched by the boundless liberality of their master, usurped with impunity the privilege of rapine and corruption.

Chevaliers, ce concussionnaire, ce gouffre, cette Kharybdis de rapines, ce vaurien, cet archivaurien!

The love of rapine and war allured to the Imperial standard several tribes of Saracens, or roving Arabs, whose service Julian had commanded, while he sternly refused the payment of the accustomed subsidies.

Timour might boast, that, at his accession to the throne, Asia was the prey of anarchy and rapine, whilst under his prosperous monarchy a child, fearless and unhurt, might carry a purse of gold from the East to the West.

Though I met the entrance requirements, being masculine and a widower, I was frankly queasy at the thought of witnessing the rapine that Ingerson had described and feared that I could not do so without interfering.

These impious orders could not be executed without tumults and massacres, as in many places the people chose rather to die in the defence of their altars, than to behold in the midst of peace their cities exposed to the rapine and cruelty of war.

The rapine of the Carmathians was sanctified by their aversion to the worship of Mecca: they robbed a caravan of pilgrims, and twenty thousand devout Moslems were abandoned on the burning sands to a death of hunger and thirst.

Joan never met, as a woman with a consuming passion for the chastest concubinal fidelity, whose fate it was to be continually falling into the hands of licentious foes and suffering the worst extremities of rapine.

The thin margin that had halted the likely destruction of their world in rapine and fire under the swarming mass of tens of thousands of imps and trolls.

Somewhere in between the Wood and the dirt, the violence and the rapine, Lamos had found himself at last.

Each one of the Incas not only followed the tyranny of his father, but also began afresh the same tyranny by force, with deaths, robberies and rapine.