raisin

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English raisin, also reisin and raysyn,^[2][3][4] borrowed from Anglo-Norman reisin, also reysin and raysine,^[5][1][4] the same word as Old French raisin (“grape, cluster of grapes”),^[5][6][7] recorded in Anglo-Norman from 1121–35.^[8] It comes from Vulgar Latin *racīmus,^{[6][4][9][10]} an alteration of Latin racēmus (“cluster of grapes or berries”),^[6][4][11] and the OED cites the altered form as post-classical Latin from before 1310, in a British source.^[5] The Latin noun is also the source of raceme,^[4][10][12] and of Occitan razim, Catalan raïm, Spanish racimo, Portuguese racimo and Italian racemo.^[5] It is probably a borrowing from the same lost Mediterranean language as Ancient Greek ῥάξ (rháx, “grape, berry”),^[6][4][3] and the American Heritage Dictionary also compares Albanian rrush (“grape”) and Middle Persian raz (“vineyard, vine”).^[9] A French variant, rosin or roisin, gave Dutch rozijn, German Rosine and Swedish russin.^[5][6]

Earliest recorded meaning

A cluster of grapes, or a grape: about 1300, in the Childhood of Jesus.^[5] The dried grape follows at once, in the Ely sacrist rolls of 1302–3,^[5] and Barnhart finds reisyn, grape or raisin, probably before 1300, in Kyng Alisaunder.^[4] An account roll of Durham Abbey of 1278 has Raycinys in a Latin passage, which the OED can't assign to Anglo-Norman or to English.^[5]

Semantic evolution

The meaning narrowed step by step: from "bunch of grapes" in Latin to "grape" in Old French, then to "dried grape", which it was already becoming when English took the word.^[10] For several centuries English used it for fresh grapes too,^[12][6][5] as in the Wycliffite Bible's reysyns left in the vineyard for the poor,^[13] and the OED records the fresh-grape use until 1795, though the Shorter Oxford ends it in the early 17th century.^[5][14] That double use is why a phrase such as raisins of the sun was needed for the sun-dried fruit, as Trench pointed out in 1859, by which time the word had come to be used only of dried grapes.^[13][5] Johnson (1755) explained that grapes of every kind preserved in this way are called raisins, and that those dried in the sun are sweeter than those dried in ovens.^[15] A 1396 account from Whitby Abbey has raysincurans, and in Yorkshire dialect raisin-currants was still heard in the 19th century, beside raisin-pie.^[16] The word has named a dark purplish colour since 1764.^[5] American and New Zealand slang have used it for a black person (derogatory, from 1972), for an old person and, in the plural, for the testicles.^[17]

Timeline

• c. 1300 – a cluster of grapes, or a grape (obsolete).^[5]
• 1302–3 – a dried grape.^[5]
• before 1425 – great raisin and small raisin, the latter a currant.^[5]
• c. 1543 – raisins of the sun, sun-dried grapes.^[5]
• 1573 – a vine growing grapes for drying (obsolete).^[5]
• 1764 – the dark purplish-brown colour.^[5]
• 1972 – United States slang, a derogatory word for a black person.^[17]

Meanings

Noun

1. A grape dried in the sun or by artificial heat, eaten as it is or used in cooking: a loaf studded with raisins.^[18][3][5]
2. A dark purplish colour.^[3][5][14]
3. (obsolete, c. 1300–1795) A bunch of grapes, or a single grape.^[5][2][14]

Verb

1. Of grapes: to dry on the vine and come to look like raisins.^[3]

Word family

• raisiny

Related words

• raceme

Usage notes

A pronunciation like that of reason is shown by puns in Shakespeare;^[5] Webster still defended it in 1828, and it lasted longest in the southern and south midland United States, where it was rare but current about 1960.^[5]

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b Kurath, Hans; Kuhn, Sherman M.; Lewis, Robert E., eds. (1952–2001), Middle English Dictionary, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press; online edition ed. Frances McSparran et al. (2000–2018)
3. ^ a b c d e Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
4. ^ a b c d e f g Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ a b c d e f Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
7. ^ Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
8. ^ Anglo-Norman Dictionary (AND2), Aberystwyth University, anglo-norman.net (2nd ed., 2005–)
9. ^ a b The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
10. ^ a b c Ayto, John (2005), Word Origins: The Secret Histories of English Words from A to Z, 2nd ed., London: A & C Black
11. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
12. ^ a b Cresswell, Julia (2021), Oxford Dictionary of Word Origins, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
13. ^ a b Trench, Richard Chenevix (1859), A Select Glossary of English Words Used Formerly in Senses Different from Their Present, London: John W. Parker
14. ^ a b c Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
15. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
16. ^ Wright, Joseph, ed. (1898–1905), The English Dialect Dictionary, 6 vols., Oxford: Henry Frowde; via EDD Online 4.0, University of Innsbruck (CC BY 4.0)
17. ^ a b Green, Jonathon (2010), Green's Dictionary of Slang, London: Chambers; digital ed. 2016–, https://greensdictofslang.com
18. ^ Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins