Ravenous
— extremely hungry; voracious
Ravenous means extremely hungry — so hungry that the desire for food becomes urgent and almost uncontrollable. It goes well beyond ordinary hunger; a ravenous person feels a fierce, consuming need to eat.
The word can also be used figuratively to describe an insatiable desire or greed for anything, not just food. A ravenous appetite for knowledge, a ravenous ambition — in each case, the word conveys an intensity that borders on desperation.
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Memory Mnemonic
RAVEN US
The keyword RAVEN US comes from how Ravenous sounds when spoken aloud. This pronunciation connection makes it easy to recall the keyword whenever you hear or see the word.
Memory Link
The RAVEN attacked US for food—it was extremely hungry and voracious!
Picture a giant black RAVEN swooping down and attacking US because it is so desperately, ferociously hungry that it will go after anything that moves. RAVEN US gives you the keyword, and the image of this starving bird attacking in a frenzy captures the extreme hunger of ravenous. Visualise the raven diving at you with outstretched talons, driven by a voracious hunger it cannot control.
HOW TO MEMORIZE VOCABULARY
There are 3 steps to effectively memorising vocabulary.
Step 1: Derive a keyword from the word based on how the word is spelled or pronounced. Next time you see the word, you will be able to derive the keyword from it because it is based on the word.
Step 2: Form a visual memory link that connects the keyword and the meaning(s) of the word you are learning.
Step 3: Ensure to Visualise the image, see it in your imagination. This is important even if it takes a few seconds.
Usage Examples
- After hiking for eight hours without a break, the group was absolutely ravenous.
- The ravenous wolves descended on the carcass, tearing into it within seconds.
- She had a ravenous appetite for books, devouring three or four novels a week.
- The children came home from school ravenous and emptied the refrigerator in minutes.
- His ravenous ambition drove him to work eighteen-hour days without complaint.
Etymology of Ravenous
From Old French ravineus, meaning "rapacious" or "violent," derived from ravine meaning "pillage" or "violent rush." Ultimately from Latin rapina, meaning "plunder." The word shifted from describing violent seizure to its modern sense of extreme, desperate hunger.
Synonyms & Antonyms of Ravenous
Synonyms
Antonyms
Common Collocations with Ravenous
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