the.com/ravage
What time does to beauty and armies do to towns, minus the apology.
means To wreck something thoroughly and violently, stripping it of value or life in the process.
from From French ravager, rooted in ravir — 'to seize, to carry off by force' — the same root that gives English 'ravish.' Behind that sits Latin rapere, 'to seize or plunder,' the ancestor of 'rapid' and 'rapt' too. The whole family shares one idea: something taken by force, fast, without permission.
- not ravish
- ravish seduces, ravage destroys — pirates confuse these constantly
- root
- from french ravir, to seize violently
- usage drift
- now mostly deployed by skincare ads about wrinkles
- grammar trap
- ravaged by time sounds poetic, ravished by time sounds illegal