/reɪv/
[verb] To speak or write about something with great excitement and enthusiasm, or to talk in a wild and confused way. It can also refer to attending a large dance party with loud electronic music.
A word once used for madness and delirium now describes both ecstatic praise and all-night dance parties.
The word 'rave' arrives in English during the 14th century, most likely from the Old French word 'raver' or 'resver', meaning to wander, dream, or talk wildly. The Old French 'resver' is itself somewhat mysterious — scholars believe it may come from a Vulgar Latin root related to 'vagari', meaning to wander aimlessly, though the full chain of transmission is not entirely certain. What is clear is that the earliest English uses of 'rave' carried a strong sense of madness, delirium, and incoherent speech — the kind of frantic babbling associated with fever, grief, or mental disturbance.
In its first English appearances, to 'rave' was almost entirely negative. A person who raved was out of control, lost to reason, gripped by passion or illness. Writers of the medieval period used it to describe the frantic cries of mourners, the wandering speech of the sick, and the wild declarations of the lovesick. Shakespeare, always alert to a word's emotional power, used 'rave' in precisely this way — his characters rave when they are consumed by jealousy, grief, or fury, unable to master their own tongues.
Something fascinating happened during the 17th and 18th centuries: the word began to loosen its grip on pure madness and drift toward something more ambiguous. To rave about something began to suggest not just uncontrolled speech, but uncontrolled admiration. The shift is subtle but important — the wildness remained, but it was now the wildness of enthusiasm rather than of breakdown. By the 19th century, theatre critics were raving about performances, and audiences raved about singers. The same loss of rational control that once described lunatics was now applied to devoted fans.
By the 20th century, 'rave' had split cleanly into two strong streams. As a noun and verb describing enthusiastic praise, it had become completely standard — a 'rave review' is among the highest compliments a film or book can receive. Simultaneously, in British slang of the 1950s and 1960s, a 'rave' began to describe a wild, lively party, full of noise and excitement. This sense was likely influenced by the old meaning of frantic, chaotic energy — a rave was a gathering where normal social rules dissolved in a sea of music and movement.
The modern meaning — a large, often illegal all-night dance event centred on electronic music — crystallised in the late 1980s in Britain, when the acid house and electronic music movements swept through cities and fields alike. Young people gathered in warehouses and open countryside, dancing through the night to repetitive beats. The connection to the original meaning is almost poetic: those early ravers were, in a sense, returning the word to its roots — losing themselves, wandering from the ordinary world, speaking (or rather dancing) in a language beyond reason. A word born from madness had found, centuries later, its perfect modern home.