rave

• enPR: rāv, IPA^(key): /ɹeɪv/

  • Audio (Southern England):

    (file)

• Rhymes: -eɪv

From Middle English raven (“to rave; talk like a madman”), from Old French raver, variant of resver, of uncertain origin. Compare rave below, and rove.

rave (countable and uncountable, plural raves)

1. (informal, countable) An enthusiastic review (such as of a play).

   Synonym: raving review

   • 1989, The New York Times Theater Reviews, 1920-, volume 18, page 167:

     The first-night audience, yes. The first-night reviewers, not exactly. The notices have so far been mixed, only The Financial Times having delivered itself of an unequivocal rave.

2. An all-night dance party with electronic dance music (techno, trance, drum and bass etc.) in small unknown clubs.

   Synonym: rave-up

3. (music, uncountable) The genres of electronic dance music made to be played in rave parties.
   • 2009, Chrysalis Experiential Academy, Mind Harvesting, page 109:

     Maybe I wear baggies / And white socks with flip-flops / Maybe I don't like listening to rave / And I'm not on the social mountaintops

• → Finnish: reivit (pl)

rave (third-person singular simple present raves, present participle raving, simple past and past participle raved)

1. (intransitive) To be mentally unclear; to be delirious; to talk or act irrationally; to be wild, furious, or raging.
   • 1712 (date written), [Joseph] Addison, Cato, a Tragedy. […], London: […] J[acob] Tonson, […], published 1713, →OCLC, Act I, scene iv, page 1:

     Have I not cause to rave and beat my breast?

   • 1849–1861, Thomas Babington Macaulay, chapter XIII, in The History of England from the Accession of James the Second, volume (please specify |volume=I to V), London: Longman, Brown, Green, and Longmans, →OCLC:

     The mingled torrent of redcoats and tartans went raving down the valley to the gorge of Killiecrankie.

2. (intransitive) To speak or write wildly or incoherently.
   • 1925 July – 1926 May, A[rthur] Conan Doyle, “(please specify the chapter number)”, in The Land of Mist (eBook no. 0601351h.html), Australia: Project Gutenberg Australia, published April 2019:

     "She is in trance. Your daughter, sir, is a powerful medium." "A medium! You are raving."

3. (intransitive, followed by "about", "of" or (formerly) "on") To talk with excessive enthusiasm, passion or excitement.

   He raved about her beauty.

   • 1812, Lord Byron, “Canto I”, in Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage. A Romaunt, London: […] [F]or John Murray, […]; William Blackwood, Edinburgh; and John Cumming, Dublin; by Thomas Davison, […], →OCLC, stanza LXII:

     The hallowed scene / Which others rave on, though they know it not.

   • 1846 October 1 – 1848 April 1, Charles Dickens, Dombey and Son, London: Bradbury and Evans, […], published 1848, →OCLC:

     “A beautiful country!”
     “I suppose it is. Everybody says so.”
     “Your cousin Feenix raves about it, Edith,” interposed her mother from her couch.

4. (obsolete) To rush wildly or furiously.^[1]
   • 1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book III, Canto VIII”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC:

     Under a mightie rocke, gainst which do rave
     The roaring billowes in their proud disdaine

5. (intransitive) To attend a rave (dance party).
   • 2021, Samantha Durbin, Raver Girl: Coming of Age in the 90s:

     The situation with Tommy's parents made me grateful my parents hadn't caught on to my partying that summer. How had I gotten away with raving every weekend, and sometimes on Thursday nights too?

• rant and rave

• → Finnish: reivata

• rant

From northern Middle English raven, from Old Norse ráfa (“to wander, roam”), of uncertain and obscure origin. Perhaps from a dissimilation of Proto-Germanic *wab(b)ōną (“to sway, waver, swing, shake, wobble, totter, reel, careen”), from Proto-Indo-European *webʰ- (“to move, swarm, waft”). Cognate with Norwegian Nynorsk rava (“to wander, be delirious”). Doublet of rove.

Compare also Middle Dutch reven (“to utter nonsense, rave, be drowsy”) (whence modern Dutch revelen (“to rave, talk nonsense”), Middle Low German rēven (“to be crazy, think and talk nonsensically”), Middle High German reben (“to move about, dream, be confused”) (compare Alemannic German räbeln (“to make loud noise”)).

rave (third-person singular simple present raves, present participle raving, simple past and past participle raved)

1. (intransitive, chiefly Scotland, Newfoundland) To wander or roam.
2. (intransitive, chiefly Scotland, Newfoundland) To stray or err.

English dialect raves, or rathes (“a frame laid on a wagon, for carrying hay, etc.”).

This etymology is incomplete. You can help Wiktionary by elaborating on the origins of this term.

rave (plural raves)

1. One of the upper side pieces of the frame of a wagon body or a sleigh.^[2]
   • 1851, Harper's New Monthly Magazine, volume 3, page 519:

     It was astonishing to see how he had gnawed the rave of the sled.

   • 1875, Official Gazette of the United States Patent and Trademark Office, page 345:

     The main lever rests upon the rave when not in use.

   • 1891, Milton Thomas Richardson, Practical Blacksmithing, page 192:

     Next I weld a collar on, A, to keep the brake in place when on the sled; then make a two-eyed bolt to fasten the brake to the rave.

   • 1956 April, “"Merchant Navy" Class Pacific Modified”, in Railway Magazine, page 212:

     The superstructure of the tender is modified by the removal of the side raves, and compartments for the fire-irons are formed on each side of the coal bunker.

rave

1. (obsolete) simple past of rive

• AVRE, Vera, aver, evar, vare, vera

Inherited from Old Catalan rave, from Latin raphănus, borrowed from Ancient Greek ῥάφανος (rháphanos).^[1] The medieval plural ravens (with retention of etymological /n/) survives in western Catalan dialects and Valencian.^[2]

• IPA^(key): (Central) [ˈra.βə]
• IPA^(key): (Balearic) [ˈra.və]
• IPA^(key): (Valencia) [ˈra.ve]

rave m (plural raves or ravens)

1. radish
2. (figurative) trifle (thing of little importance or worth)

• “rave”, in Diccionari de la llengua catalana [Dictionary of the Catalan Language] (in Catalan), second edition, Institute of Catalan Studies [Catalan: Institut d'Estudis Catalans], April 2007
• “rave” in Diccionari normatiu valencià, Acadèmia Valenciana de la Llengua.

• IPA^(key): /raːvə/, [ˈʁɑːwə]

rave (imperative rav, infinitive at rave, present tense raver, past tense ravede, perfect tense har ravet)

1. reel
2. stagger, totter, lurch

• IPA^(key): /reːf/

• Audio:

  (file)

Borrowed from English rave.

rave m (plural raves, diminutive raveje n)

1. rave (electronic dance party)

   Kom je vanavond naar de rave in het bos? ― Are you coming to the rave in the forest tonight?

See the etymology of the corresponding lemma form.

rave

1. inflection of raven:
   1. first-person singular present indicative
   2. (in case of inversion) second-person singular present indicative
   3. imperative
   4. (dated or formal) singular present subjunctive

• vare

From Middle French rave (14th c.), from Franco-Provençal râva, from Latin rāpum. Compare the inherited Old French form reve (12th c.).

• IPA^(key): /ʁav/

rave f (plural raves)

1. beet, turnip
2. (mining) miner's lamp

Borrowed from English rave.

• IPA^(key): /ʁɛv/
• Homophone: rêve

rave m (plural raves)

1. rave party

   Synonym: rave party

• “rave”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.

• rêva

• (Classical Latin) IPA^(key): [ˈraː.wɛ]
• (modern Italianate Ecclesiastical) IPA^(key): [ˈraː.ve]

rāve

1. vocative masculine singular of rāvus

• "rave", in Charles du Fresne du Cange’s Glossarium Mediæ et Infimæ Latinitatis (augmented edition with additions by D. P. Carpenterius, Adelungius and others, edited by Léopold Favre, 1883–1887)

rave

1. alternative form of reif

Unadapted borrowing from English rave.

rave f (plural raves)

1. rave (party)

   Hypernym: festa

• “rave”, in Dicionário Aulete Digital (in Portuguese), Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon Editora Digital, 2008–2025
• “rave”, in Dicionário Priberam da Língua Portuguesa (in Portuguese), Lisbon: Priberam, 2008–2025

Unadapted borrowing from English rave.

• IPA^(key): /ˈreib/ [ˈrei̯β̞]
• Rhymes: -eib

rave f (plural raves)

1. rave (party)

According to Royal Spanish Academy (RAE) prescriptions, unadapted foreign words should be written in italics in a text printed in roman type, and vice versa, and in quotation marks in a manuscript text or when italics are not available. In practice, this RAE prescription is not always followed.

• Manuel Seco, Olimpia Andrés, Gabino Ramos (3 August 2023) “rave”, in Diccionario del español actual [Dictionary of Current Spanish] (in Spanish), third digital edition, Fundación BBVA [BBVA Foundation]

• rejv

rave n

1. rave (all-night dance party with electronic music, or the associated culture)

   Synonym: (rave party) raveparty

• rejva
• rejvare

• rave in Svensk ordbok (SO)
• rave in Svenska Akademiens ordlista (SAOL)

rave

1. plural of rava