 The word is akin to "rapine", "rapture", "raptor", "rapacious" and "ravish", and referred to the more general violations, such as looting, destruction, and capture of citizens, that are inflicted upon a town or country during war, e.g.the Rape of Nanking.The "Oxford English Dictionary" gives the definition "the act of carrying away a person, especially a woman, by force" besides the more general "the act of taking anything by force" (marked as "obsolete") and the more specific "violation or ravishing of a woman".