raze

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English rasen, also racen,^[2][3] borrowed from Anglo-Norman raser (“to scrape, shave”), as in Old French raser.^{[4][2][5][6][7]} The French verb comes through Medieval Latin rāsō (“to level, erase”), or by the OED's account an unattested form like it,^[4][3][5][2] which the American Heritage Dictionary and Dictionary.com reconstruct as Vulgar Latin *rāsō,^[8][9] from Latin rādō (“to scrape, shave”), past participle rāsus.^[5][4][3] The OED calls the Latin verb of uncertain origin.^[4] Etymonline gives Welsh rhathu and Breton rahein as cognates, and reports both Watkins's guess of a link with Proto-Indo-European *red- (“to scrape, scratch, gnaw”) and de Vaan's doubt about any Indo-European origin, since the family is only found in Italic and Celtic.^[5] The modern spelling is usually explained as a variant of rase,^{[10][11][12][13]} and Barnhart and Etymonline see the sense "to demolish" as an alteration of the form racen.^[3][5]

Earliest recorded meaning

To scratch, slash or scrape: Barnhart dates Middle English rasen to before 1349,^[3] from a text by R. Rolle that the OED cites from a copy of before 1425.^[4] The OED's earliest sense group, to remove by scraping, is first recorded before 1387 in Trevisa's translation of Higden's Polychronicon.^[4] In French the verb is recorded already in the 12th century, and the Anglo-Norman verb had the senses of shaving, erasing and demolishing.^[4][7]

Semantic evolution

The Middle English verb meant to scrape or scratch.^[4][3] It was used from before 1393 of scraping writing out of a manuscript.^[4][5] Barnhart notes racen, to pull or knock down, from before 1375,^[3] and the OED dates the sense "to tear down, demolish or level" from 1523.^[4] Barnhart dates the modern form to before 1547, in a translation of Vergil's Aeneid,^[3] and Etymonline and Dictionary.com to the 1540s.^[5][9] French already had the sense in the late 13th century.^[4] Johnson (1755) gave "to overthrow; to ruin; to subvert" first.^[14] The scraping senses faded: shaving lasted until 1732, grazing in passing until 1885, and scraping off until 1869, though it is still in Merriam-Webster.^[4][10] By 1921 Weekley could say that the word was now usually used of buildings and fortifications, especially in raze to the ground.^[15] The OED has also the figurative sense of removing something completely, from 1580.^[4] A noun for a scratch or cut lasted from 1530 to 1770.^[4]

Timeline

• before 1349 – to scratch, slash or scrape.^[3][4]
• before 1375 – racen, to pull or knock down.^[3]
• before 1387 – to remove by scraping.^[4]
• before 1393 – to erase writing.^[4]
• c. 1460 – to shave.^[4]
• 1523 – to tear down, demolish.^[4] Etymonline dates this to the 1540s and Barnhart to before 1547.^[5][3]
• 1530 – noun, the act of scratching.^[4]
• 1555 – to scrape or graze in passing.^[4]
• 1580 – to remove completely.^[4]

Meanings

Verb

1. To demolish a building or town completely; to level: The old mill was razed to the ground.^{[16][10][9][4]}
2. To scrape, cut or shave off.^[10][9]
3. (rare) To erase or efface writing.^[16][4][10]
4. (archaic) To graze or wound slightly.^[16][10][4]

Noun

1. (obsolete, 1530–1770) A scratch or cut.^[4][10]

Word family

• razer
• unrazed

Related words

• razor
• rase
• erase
• abrade
• abrasion
• razee
• rash
• raise

Usage notes

It is also spelled rase,^[16][9] and can be confused with raise.^[9] Johnson (1755) also has an unrelated raze, a root of ginger, from Spanish, in Shakespeare, which he says is usually written race.^[14] The OED has one more raze of unknown origin, a clay slate found in Cornwall.^[4]

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c 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 f g h i j k Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z 27 Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
5. ^ a b c d e f g h Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
6. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
7. ^ a b Anglo-Norman Dictionary (AND2), Aberystwyth University, anglo-norman.net (2nd ed., 2005–)
8. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (2000), 4th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin
9. ^ a b c d e f Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
10. ^ a b c d e f g Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
11. ^ Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
12. ^ Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
13. ^ Skeat, Walter W. (1911), A Concise Etymological Dictionary of the English Language, new ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
14. ^ a b Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
15. ^ Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
16. ^ a b c d Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins