Dictionaries › English

raze

Pronunciation: /ɹeɪz/

The English word “raze” has 17 meanings listed here.

verb

  1. To level or tear down (a building, a town, etc.) to the ground; to demolish.
  2. To completely remove (someone or something), especially from a place, a situation, etc.; also, to remove from existence; to destroy, to obliterate.
  3. To erase (a record, text, etc.), originally by scraping; to rub out, to scratch out.
  4. To wound (someone or part of their body) superficially; to graze.
  5. To alter (a document) by erasing parts of it.
  6. To carve (a line, mark, etc.) into something; to incise, to inscribe; also, to carve lines, marks, etc., into (something); to engrave.
  7. To remove (something) by scraping; also, to cut or shave (something) off.
  8. To rub lightly along the surface of (something); brush against, to graze.
  9. To 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.
  10. To shave (someone or part of their body) with a razor, etc.
  11. To cut, scratch, or tear (someone or something) with a sharp object; to lacerate, to slash.
  12. To carve lines, marks, etc., into something.
  13. To graze or rub lightly along a surface.
  14. To penetrate through something; to pierce.
  15. Of a horse: to wear down its corner teeth as it ages, losing the black marks in their crevices.

noun

  1. A slight wound; a scratch; also, a cut, a slit.
  2. A swinging fence in a watercourse to prevent cattle passing through.

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…

Keep exploring: in the interactive dictionary every word of a definition is a link. Open “raze” there

More English words

About this dictionary

The English dictionary on Glottosphere has 650,529 entries with a page. Browse the English dictionary.

Definitions are from Wiktionary, extracted by Kaikki.org, and are available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.