# "Rapine" vs. "Raping"

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rapine-vs-raping/372025>\
**Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\
**Created:** [September 9, 2006, 2:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rapine-vs-raping/372025 "2006-09-09T02:15:55Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![John\_DiFool](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_difool/32/19543_2.png) [@John\_DiFool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_DiFool)\
**Post date:** [September 9, 2006, 2:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rapine-vs-raping/372025/1 "2006-09-09T02:15:55Z")

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Having looked these up, I noticed that “rapine” is the act of plundering property (thus  
a noun). In the past I have been puzzled when people say “rapine and pillaging”  
instead of “raping and pillaging”, since I thought the former was incorrect both  
grammatically AND contextually (a misspelling IOW and/or a redundancy). Well I  
was wrong on one count then FWIW…

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**Author:** ![samclem](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a9a28c/32.png) [@samclem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/samclem)\
**Post date:** [September 9, 2006, 3:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rapine-vs-raping/372025/2 "2006-09-09T03:19:16Z")

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Since there is no Question evident, let’s slide this over to MPSIMS.

**samclem**

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**Author:** ![Excalibre](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/898d66/32.png) [@Excalibre](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Excalibre)\
**Post date:** [September 9, 2006, 8:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rapine-vs-raping/372025/3 "2006-09-09T08:18:58Z")

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[QUOTE=John DiFool]  
Having looked these up, I noticed that “rapine” is the act of plundering property (thus  
a noun). In the past I have been puzzled when people say “rapine and pillaging”  
instead of “raping and pillaging”, since I thought the former was incorrect both  
grammatically AND contextually (a misspelling IOW and/or a redundancy). Well I  
was wrong on one count then FWIW…  
[/QUOTE]

I’ve never once heard “rapine and pillaging”. I suspect you misheard. They’re not that different in sound, after all.

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**Author:** ![astro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9dc877/32.png) [@astro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astro)\
**Post date:** [September 9, 2006, 10:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rapine-vs-raping/372025/4 "2006-09-09T10:39:44Z")

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[http://armchaircapitalists.blogspot.com/2006/05/so-word-of-day-is-useful-sometimes.html](http://armchaircapitalists.blogspot.com/2006/05/so-word-of-day-is-useful-sometimes.html)