[OT] What the hell does "reaver" mean ?

[Gez]

Yeah, what's up with this word ? There's the console game "Soul Reaver", there's a "Reaver" prestige class in Seas of Blood, there's a "Slime Reaver" bullywug-like monster in Creature Collection 2...

According to all the English dictionaries I've consulted, be they for translation or for definition, be they paper or found on the Internet, there's no words between "reassuringly" and "reawaken". When I've asked an English teacher (who's a native englishwoman from the UK); she said she never saw that word and asked me if I didn't confused it with "reefer" ...

What does this silly word mean ?

 

[BlueMonsterKu]

I believe a reaver is an object that harvests in a violent way. I realy dull scythe for example could be a Reaver of Wheat. Cause you'd realy have to whack at the stalks with it.

 

[Nightfall]

Dictionary.com says a Reaver is one who reaves.

Reave itself means as follows:

To seize and carry off forcibly.
To deprive (one) of something; bereave.
To plunge, pillage or rob.


That help Gez? Btw, that's why they call people that plunder a Reaver. It's an archaic word, thus not often heard of in modern English.

 

[Gez]

OK. Then the slime reaver are depriving other people of slime ? They're really evil

 

[Nightfall]

I think slime in this case refers to them being SLIMY not about them depriving others of Slime, Gez.

 

[Henry]

In the case of "Slime Reaver," it is possible that the person who thought up this name assumed that "Reaver" was synonymous with "Cleaver", which I used to. If a "reaver" was something that cut an item or thing in two, then a case could be made.

Under that assumption, "Soul Reaver" would work as either one who stole souls, or one who destroyed souls. "Slime Reaver", however, sounds rather silly.

 

[pensiv]

I believe a reaver is an object that harvests in a violent way. I realy dull scythe for example could be a Reaver of Wheat. Cause you'd realy have to whack at the stalks with it.

Harvesting is reaping, not reaving. To say that a scythe is a reaver is not accurate at all. It would be more accurate to call it a reaper.

to reave is to take something forcibly. A reaver is a theif. Nightfall does well with the dictionary.com defintions.
I think that because reaver is not a common word, people confuse it with other words. Yes Slime Reaver is a silly concept when considering the meaning of the word reaver.

 

[Grifter86]

Reaver

I believe when reaver is used in the cases of Slime Reaver or Soul Reaver it is almost a synonym for "bandit."

Historically, Reavers was the nickname of the barbaric Scottish based raiders that swept in, killed men, women and children in outlying villages, and pillaged thoroughly.

Of course, I may have a detail or several wrong.

 

[Buttercup]

Here's a bit more info. Reave is from Middle English reven, meaning 'to plunder', which is from Old English, reafian. It is related to the Old Norse word rifa which means 'to rend, tear apart, break into pieces'.

My source is The American Heritage Dictionary, 4th ed.

 

[hnoor0022]

It is related to the Old Norse word rifa which means 'to rend, tear apart, break into pieces....