raze
Definition, pronunciation, etymology, and usage for the English word. Free spelling reference powered by Wiktionary.
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English
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Detailed reference entry for the English word "raze", 4-letters, with pronunciation in International Phonetic Alphabet notation, etymology traced through Germanic and Romance roots where applicable, common misspelling variants catalogued from Hunspell error dictionaries, and usage frequency ranked against the top 100,000 English words in the Wordfreq corpus. PlainSpell covers English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and German spelling with confusable-pair detection that highlights visually and phonetically similar words. This entry for "raze" includes synonyms, antonyms, homophones, and cross-language translation pointers sourced from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org extract. Whether you are verifying the correct spelling of "raze" for academic writing, checking homophone confusion, or exploring etymological origins, this page provides a citation-backed, free reference that requires no sign-up.
raze is aEnglishverb. It means: To level or tear down (a building, a town, etc.) to the ground; to demolish. Pronounced /ɹeɪz/.
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Browse all word comparisons →| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | raze |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Verb |
| IPA | /ɹeɪz/ |
| Letters | 4 |
| Frequency rank | #51,944 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Frequency rank visualization
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for raze is 4 letters long, classified as averb, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /ɹeɪz/. Corpus data places it at rank #51,944 in overall English word frequency, marking it as uncommon enough that many writers pause before typing it.Wiktionary records 15 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
No frequent misspelling variants are recorded for raze in our index, suggesting the orthography either follows predictable English patterns or the word is uncommon enough that typo corpora lack signal.It is not paired with a close-neighbour confusable in our dataset, which tends to mean the word is visually distinctive enough to stand on its own.
Etymologically, the entry records: The verb is derived from Middle English rasen, racen, rase (“to scrape; to shave; to erase; to pull; to strip off; to pluck or tear out; to root out (a tree, etc.); to pull away, snatch; to pull down; to knock down; to rend, tear apart; to pick clean, strip… Root origin matters for spelling because borrowed morphemes (Greek, Latin, Old French, Old English) carry their source-language orthographic conventions into modern English, which is why historical etymology is often the cleanest predictor of whether a cluster like "-ough", "-eau", or "-tion" will appear. For readers arriving here from a spelling check, the authoritative guidance is: the correct English form is raze, spelled R-A-Z-E, and any other sequence of those letters, regardless of how natural it feels, is a misspelling in standard orthography.
Definition
- 1To level or tear down (a building, a town, etc.) to the ground; to demolish.
- 2To completely remove (someone or something), especially from a place, a situation, etc.; also, to remove from existence; to destroy, to obliterate.
- 3To erase (a record, text, etc.), originally by scraping; to rub out, to scratch out.
- 4To wound (someone or part of their body) superficially; to graze.
- 5To alter (a document) by erasing parts of it.
- 6To carve (a line, mark, etc.) into something; to incise, to inscribe; also, to carve lines, marks, etc., into (something); to engrave.
- 7To remove (something) by scraping; also, to cut or shave (something) off.
- 8To rub lightly along the surface of (something); brush against, to graze.
- 9To scrape (something), with or as if with a razor, to remove things from its surface; also, to reduce (something) to small pieces by scraping; to grate.
- 10To shave (someone or part of their body) with a razor, etc.
- 11To cut, scratch, or tear (someone or something) with a sharp object; to lacerate, to slash.
- 12To carve lines, marks, etc., into something.
- 13To graze or rub lightly along a surface.
- 14To penetrate through something; to pierce.
- 15Of a horse: to wear down its corner teeth as it ages, losing the black marks in their crevices.
Etymology
The verb is derived from Middle English rasen, racen, rase (“to scrape; to shave; to erase; to pull; to strip off; to pluck or tear out; to root out (a tree, etc.); to pull away, snatch; to pull down; to knock down; to rend, tear apart; to pick clean, strip; to cleave, slice; to sever; to lacerate; to pierce; to carve, engrave; to dig; (figurative) to expunge, obliterate; to alter”), from Anglo-Norman raser, rasere, rasser, Middle French raser, and Old French raser (“to shave; to touch lightly, graze; to level off (grain, etc.) in a measure; to demolish, tear down; to erase; to polish; to wear down”), from Vulgar Latin *raso (“to shave; to scrape; to scratch; to touch lightly, graze”), from Latin rāsus (“scraped; shaved”), the perfect passive participle of rādō (“to scrape, scratch; to shave; to rub, smooth; to brush along, graze”). Doublet of rash (etymology 2 and etymology 7). The noun is derived from the verb.
This word in other languages
Frequency rank: #51,944 in English
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Nearby English words
Other entries that begin with the letter R in our English index: