Raise or raze?
raise is a verb meaning “To cause to rise; to lift or elevate”; raze is a verb meaning “To level or tear down (a building, a town, etc.) to the ground; to demolish”. They sound the same (/ɹeɪz/). In written English (wordfreq, 2021 data) raise is about 170 times as common as raze.
What is the difference between raise and raze?
| raise | raze | |
|---|---|---|
| Part of speech | verb, noun | verb, noun |
| Meaning | To cause to rise; to lift or elevate To form by the accumulation of materials or constituent parts; to build up; to erect A shot in which the delivered stone bumps another stone forward | To level or tear down (a building, a town, etc.) to the ground; to demolish To completely remove (someone or something), especially from a place, a situation, etc.; also, to remove from existence; to destroy, to obliterate A swinging fence in a watercourse to prevent cattle passing through |
| Example | to raise your hand if you want to say something; to raise your walking stick to defend yourself | none recorded |
| Forms | raises, raising, raised | razes, razing, razed |
| Pronunciation | /ɹeɪz/ | /ɹeɪz/ /ɹæɪz/ |
| In writing | 56 times per million words | about once in every 3 million words |
Sources: raise and raze in the English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0); written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
Every current meaning of raise and raze
raise
- 1
To cause to rise; to lift or elevate
to raise your hand if you want to say something; to raise your walking stick to defend yourself
- 2
USEllipsis of pay raise (“an increase in wages or salary”)
The boss gave me a raise
- 3
A cairn or pile of stones
- 4
To form by the accumulation of materials or constituent parts; to build up; to erect
to raise a wall, or a heap of stones
- 5
A shot in which the delivered stone bumps another stone forward
- 6
To cause something to come to the surface of water
The ship was raised ten years after it had sunk
- 7
A bet that increases the previous bet
- 8
To cause (the land or any other object) to seem higher by drawing nearer to it
to raise Sandy Hook light
raze
- 1
To level or tear down (a building, a town, etc.) to the ground; to demolish
- 2
A swinging fence in a watercourse to prevent cattle passing through
- 3
To completely remove (someone or something), especially from a place, a situation, etc.; also, to remove from existence; to destroy, to obliterate
- 4
To erase (a record, text, etc.), originally by scraping; to rub out, to scratch out
- 5
To wound (someone or part of their body) superficially; to graze
Source: the English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0); obsolete, archaic, dialect and rare senses left out.
Which is more common, raise or raze?
raise appears 56 times per million words; raze about once in every 3 million words.
raise 56 times per million wordsraze about once in every 3 million words
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
How many people search raise vs raze?
“raise vs raze” is searched about 70 times a month on Google and 20 on Bing in the United States. Google counts close variants of a query together (“raze vs raise”, “raise or raze”).
Sources: Google Ads keyword data through DataForSEO and Microsoft Advertising keyword data through DataForSEO, the average month from September 2025 to August 2026.