Ravenous comes from Old French ravineus ('ravenous, violent'), from raviner ('to seize, rush'), from ravine ('plunder, rush'), from Latin rapina ('plunder'), from rapere ('to seize'). The historical chain includes Old French ravineus, Latin rapina, and Latin rapere. Older glosses in the chain include "ravenous, violent", "to seize, rush", "plunder, rush", and "plunder", which help explain the semantic range of the modern word. Morphologically, ravenous is best read as borrowing, yielding an English adjective shaped by both form history and later usage. In current English it functions as an adjective, with the sense "extremely hungry; voracious". English derivatives include ravenously and ravenousness; related forms include raven, ravin, ravine, and rapine. The result is an English adjective whose etymology preserves the older forms while supporting the word's specialized modern meaning.