different between reft vs reave

English

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /??ft/
• Rhymes: -?ft

Verb

reft

1. simple past tense and past participle of reave

Noun

reft (plural refts)

1. A chink; a rift.
   • 1870, Dr. Bence Jones, The Life and Letters of Faraday, Philadelphia: J.B. Lippincott & Co., Vol. II, Chapter II, p. 146, [1]

     At one time the summit was beautifully bathed in golden light, whilst the middle part was quite blue, and the snow of its peculiar blue-green colour in the refts. Some of the glaciers are very distinct to us, and with the telescope I can see the refts and corrugations of the different parts, and the edges from which avalanches have fallen […]

   • 1894, Ivan Dexter, Talmud: A Strange Narrative of Central Australia, published in serial form in Port Adelaide News and Lefevre's Peninsula Advertiser (SA), Chapter VII, [2]

     Now and again through a reft in the smoke a gleam of sunshine could be seen striking the rocks on the great peak to the west, but it had little or no effect in the gorge.

   (Can we find and add a quotation of The Romaunt of the Rose to this entry?)

Anagrams

• FRET, TERF, fret, terf, tref

English

Alternative forms

• reive, rieve (archaic)

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?i?v/

• Rhymes: -i?v

• Homophone: reeve

Etymology 1

From Middle English reven, from Old English r?afian, from Proto-West Germanic *raub?n.

Germanic cognates include West Frisian rave, Old English r?af (“spoils, booty”)), and Old English past participle rofen (“torn, broken”), Norwegian rjuva, German rauben, Danish røve, and Swedish röva. Outside of Germanic, related to Latin rumpere (“to break”), Lithuanian rùpti (“to roughen”), Sanskrit ?????? (ropayati, “to make suffer”)). See rob and reif.

Verb

reave (third-person singular simple present reaves, present participle reaving, simple past and past participle reaved or reft)

1. (archaic) To plunder, pillage, rob, pirate, or remove.
2. (archaic) To deprive (a person) of something through theft or violence.

Derived terms

• border reiver

Related terms

• bereave
• reaver
• rip
• rob

Translations

Etymology 2

Alteration of rive by confusion with the above.

Verb

reave (third-person singular simple present reaves, present participle reaving, simple past and past participle reft)

1. (archaic) To split, tear, break apart.

Related terms

• rive
• unreaved

Middle English

Verb

reave

1. Alternative form of reven