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PlainSpell

raw

/ɹɔ/adjective, adverb, noun, verb

raw is spelled R-A-W: 3 letters and one syllable. It appears 34 times per million words in written English, the 2,831st most frequent word form (wordfreq, 2021 data). As an adjective, raw means “(of food) Not cooked” (English Wiktionary, September 2026).

How many letters and syllables are in raw?

Letters3: R-A-W
Syllables1 (from its American pronunciation)
In writing34 times per million words; the 2,831st most frequent word form
Wrong spellings searchednone measured in search
Sounds like
Rhymes with
Same letters

Sources: letters and syllables from the English Wiktionary's hyphenation or pronunciation and the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary; written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media); rhymes and same-letter words are computed by PlainSpell from its own word list.

How common is raw?

Raw appears 34 times per million words in written English, the 2,831st most frequent word form in the list.

Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).

How do you pronounce raw?

  • UK /ɹɔː/
  • /ɹɔː(ɹ)/
  • US /ɹɔ/

Raw has one syllable (counted from its American pronunciation in the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary).

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: En-us-raw.ogg, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).

Words people confuse with raw

Sounds like: roar (Wiktionary's homophone list; some hold only in some accents).

Sources: English Wiktionary (homophones, alternative spellings).

What rhymes with raw?

The 12 most written words on PlainSpell end in the same sounds as raw from its last stressed vowel (/ɔ/):

Spelled with the same letters in another order: war.

Computed by PlainSpell from the pronunciations in the English Wiktionary (dump of September 2, 2026): a rhyme shares every sound from the last stressed vowel to the end; ordered by written frequency (wordfreq 3.1).

Forms of raw

  • rawer comparative
  • rawest superlative
  • raws plural, present, singular, he/she/it
  • rawing participle, present
  • rawed participle, past

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

What does raw mean?

The meanings the English Wiktionary records, quoted as written there (source below).

adjective

  1. 1

    (of food) Not cooked.

    There's nothing but raw fish in the freezer.

  2. 2

    Subsisting on, or pertaining to, a diet of raw food.

    I was 100% raw from 2014 until early 2018.

  3. 3

    Not treated or processed; in a natural state, unrefined, unprocessed. (of materials, products, etc.)

    raw cane sugar

  4. 4

    Having had the skin removed or abraded; chafed, tender; exposed, lacerated.

    a raw wound

  5. 5

    New or inexperienced.

    a raw beginner

  6. 6

    Crude in quality; rough, uneven, unsophisticated.

    a raw voice

  7. 7

    Uncorrected, without analysis.

    What makes Mexico worrying is not just the raw numbers but the power of the cartels over society.

  8. 8

    Unpleasantly cold or damp. (of weather)

    a raw wind

adverb

  1. 1

    slangWithout a condom.

    We did it raw.

noun

  1. 1

    An unprocessed sugar; a batch of such.

  2. 2

    A galled place; an inveterate sore.

  3. 3

    A point about which a person is particularly sensitive.

  4. 4

    slangUnadulterated narcotics, especially crack cocaine

  5. 5

    slangA recording or rip of a show that has not been fansubbed.

  6. 6

    slangA scan that has not been cleaned (purged of blemishes arising from the scanning process) and has not been scanlated.

verb

  1. 1

    slangTo sexually penetrate without a condom.

noun

as RAW
  1. 1

    Abbreviation of rules as written: the actual rules appearing in the rulebook, as opposed to house rules, or to rules that might have been intended (in the event of a mistake in the rulebook).

  2. 2

    Initialism of read after write, a kind of data hazard.

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

Raw in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese

LanguageWords
Frenchcru (uncooked), brut (untreated), nu (not covered; bare, bald)
Germanroh (uncooked), Roh- (untreated), rau (crude in quality)
Portuguesecru, crua (uncooked), bruto (untreated), inexperiente, xucro (inexperienced), no pelo (without a condom)
Spanishcrudo (uncooked), en carne viva (chafed, exposed of a wound), bruto (of data, statistics etc: uncorrected, without…)

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Translations are Wiktionary's, by sense; a linked word has its own PlainSpell page.

Where does raw come from?

From Middle English rawe, raw, rau, from Old English hrēaw (“raw, uncooked”), from Proto-West Germanic *hrau, from Proto-Germanic *hrawaz, *hrēwaz (“raw”), from Proto-Indo-European *krewh₂- (“raw meat, fresh blood”).

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

What to look up after raw