1611 R. Cotgrave Dict. French & Eng. Tongues Sac, a sacke,..pillage, depopulation, rauaging.

1612 W. Shute tr. T. de Fougasses Gen. Hist. Venice ii. 108 They spoiled the towne, and had continued their rauaging [Fr. rauages], had not the other Swisses that lay in Milan protested against them.

a1645 W. Browne tr. M. Le Roy Hist. Polexander (1647) v. i. 300 The rest..abandon'd the protection of the holy places and sacred treasure to the ravaging and pillage of those bloudy minded villaines.

1710 H. Prideaux Orig. & Right Tithes iv. 176 We have seen..the ravagings of our Wealth.

1753 N. Torriano tr. J. B. L. Chomel Hist. Diss. Gangrenous Sore Throat 48 A Witness of the ravaging of this Distemper.

1811 W. Scott Don Roderick Introd. viii. 8 Where..shepherds sing..Of feuds obscure, and Border ravaging.

1867 E. A. Freeman Hist. Norman Conquest I. vi. 579 The ravaging of districts as chastisement or treason.

1912 Polit. Sci. Q. 27 504 No other land in Europe has suffered so continuously from the desolation of battles, sieges, ravagings, burnings, forays.

1989 J. Rifkin Entropy (rev. ed.) i. 14 We might lose up to 17 percent of all the remaining species of life..as a result of the ravaging of tropical rain forests for development purposes.

a1649 W. Drummond Hist. Scotl. (1655) 127 There was no man so safe..who by an insolent Nobility and ravaging Populacy might not be compell'd to perpetrate many things against his heart and intentions.

1664 J. Howell tr. J. Nadányi Florus Hungaricus iv. 223 (margin) His ravaging Crueltys.

1753 Ess. Celibacy 118 Should it [sc. the custom of bachelorship] universally prevail..the whole inhabited terraqueous globe would be more effectually depopulated than by the most furious and ravaging plague.

1797 Times 2 Feb. 3/3 It certainly is a happiness which Northern Germany cannot sufficiently praise, to see itself entirely freed, not only from the miseries of this ravaging war, but also from all the inconveniences connected with it.

1858 Jrnl. Royal Geogr. Soc. 28 439 The first of these [settlements] had been entirely abandoned by the inhabitants in consequence of a ravaging fever which had prevailed there.

1886 W. J. Tucker Life E. Europe 103 The ravaging hand of time.

1932 E. Bowen To North xviii. 190 Their alliance remained, on Cecilia's side certainly, largely defensive: Henry's death had been something ravaging, disproportionate.

1988 Sunday Gleaner (Kingston, Jamaica) 10 Jan. 19 a/5 We Jamaicans have been through a ravaging economic experience going back as far as 1974.

1999 J. France Western Warfare Age of Crusades vi. 71 Such gentry were also responsible and, as the ultimate commanders of ravaging armies, were at least as guilty as those they commanded.