Raise or rise?
raise is a verb meaning “To cause to rise; to lift or elevate”; rise is a verb meaning “To move upwards”. In written English (wordfreq, 2021 data) rise is about as common as raise.
What is the difference between raise and rise?
| raise | rise | |
|---|---|---|
| Part of speech | verb, noun | verb, noun, suffix |
| 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 move upwards To grow upward; to attain a certain height The process of or an action or instance of moving upwards or becoming greater |
| Example | to raise your hand if you want to say something; to raise your walking stick to defend yourself | We watched the balloon rise |
| Forms | raises, raising, raised | rises, rising, rose, risen |
| Pronunciation | /ɹeɪz/ | /ɹaɪz/ /ɹaɪs/ |
| In writing | 56 times per million words | 65 times per million words |
Sources: raise and rise 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 rise
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
rise
- 1
To move upwards
We watched the balloon rise
- 2
The process of or an action or instance of moving upwards or becoming greater
The rise of the tide
- 3
Alternative form of rice (“twig”)
- 4
Used to form noun from a noun corresponding to astronomical body, to indicate the rise of the astronomical body appears in the horizon
sun + -rise → sunrise
- 5
To grow upward; to attain a certain height
This elm tree rises to a height of seventy feet
- 6
The process of or an action or instance of coming to prominence
The rise of the working class
- 7
To slope upward
The path rises as you approach the foot of the hill
- 8
AustraliaCanadaUKAn increase in a quantity, price, etc
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 rise?
raise appears 56 times per million words; rise 65 times per million words.
raise 56 times per million wordsrise 65 times per 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 rise?
“raise vs rise” is searched about 880 times a month on Google and 40 on Bing in the United States. Google counts close variants of a query together (“rise vs raise”, “raise or rise”).
Sources: Google Ads keyword data through DataForSEO and Microsoft Advertising keyword data through DataForSEO, the average month from September 2025 to August 2026.