Raven

How to spell raven

5 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce raven

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does raven mean?

1. nounA large black bird of the crow family, known for its deep croaking call.

Raven in a sentence

• A large black raven perched on the castle wall at dusk.

• The raven is one of the most intelligent birds in the world.

Where does raven come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

The bird name comes straight from Old English hræfn, a native Germanic word that named the large glossy black member of the crow family. It has close cousins right across the old Germanic languages, including Old Norse hrafn and Old High German hraban, and many scholars believe the word began as an imitation of the bird's harsh croaking call. Over the centuries the spelling shed its early h and v became settled, leaving the smooth modern form. There is also a separate verb 'to raven', meaning to hunt for or devour prey greedily, which is a completely different word: it arrived from Old French raviner (to rush or plunder) and ultimately from Latin rapere (to seize), the same root that gives us 'rapacious' and 'ravenous'. Because the two words look identical on the page but are pronounced differently, the bird with a long first vowel and the verb with a short one, 'raven' is a small heteronym worth remembering.

How the word is built

• raven (from Old English hræfn: the large black crow); the unrelated verb sense traces to raven- (from Old French raviner: to seize, plunder)