Information on the word "Ravishing":

 

As an adjective it means "Extremely attractive" or "entrancing"  (heh heh, another "-ing" adjective!)

 

"Ravish" is also a verb so "Ravishing" is the present participle tense of "ravish" means that someone is engaged in the act denoted by the verb "Ravish", which has a few senses, including:

 

1) To seize and carry away by force.

2) To rape; violate.

3) To overwhelm with emotion; enrapture.

 

It comes from Middle English "ravisshen" which derives from Old French "ravir" and "raviss-" which in turn derives from "rapre" which is a Vulgar version of the Latin "rapere" which means "to seize".

 

It's usually used in our English as an adjective, as in "A ravishing blonde."

 

Why do we add "-ing" to create an adjective here?

 

Well, it turns out that "Verbs of emotion" can become adjective by adding "-ed" or "-ing".

 

An example would be the verb "bore" as in "My English class bores me".  "Bore" can be made into an adjective by adding "-ed" or "-ing" as in the following examples"

 

"I am bored by my English class."

"The calss is boring to me."

 

The verb + "-ed" becomes an adjective when it is used to describe a person or animal that experiences an emotion.

 

For example: "Susan was annoyed by her neighbor's dog."

 

The verb + "-ing" becomes an adjective when it is used to describe the thing or things that cause (instigate) the emotion.

 

For example: "The dog was annoying Susan."

 

Some useful tests of which is appropriate is that sentences often use the word "by" with adjectives in "-ed", such as "Greg was challenged by his math homework."  Whereas sentences often use the word "to" with adjectives ending in "-ing", such as "Greg's math homework was challenging to him."

 

So, in the case of "ravish" becoming an adjective, you could have either of these two sentences:

 

"Jeff was ravished by Jackie's beauty."

 

or

 

"Jackie's beauty was ravishing to Jeff."

 

Now, just saying "Jackie is ravishing" is really a shortening of "Jackie is ravishing to me" or to everybody, or to men or women in general, etc.

 

Anyway, have prettled on long enough...