raw

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”).

Cognate with Scots raw (“raw”), Dutch rauw (“raw”), German roh (“raw”), Swedish rå (“raw”), Icelandic hrár (“raw”), Latin crūdus (“raw, bloody, uncooked”), Irish cró (“blood”), Lithuanian kraujas (“blood”), Russian кровь (krovʹ, “blood”). Related also to Old English hrēow, hrēoh (“rough, fierce, wild, angry, disturbed, troubled, sad, stormy, tempestuous”). More at ree.

• (UK) enPR: rô, IPA^(key): /ɹɔː/

Rhymes: -ɔː

• (US) enPR: rô, IPA^(key): /ɹɔ/
• (cot–caught merger) enPR: rä, IPA^(key): /ɹɑ/

  • Audio (US):

    (file)

• Homophones: roar (non-rhotic); rah (cot–caught merger)

raw (comparative rawer, superlative rawest)

1. (cooking) (of food) Not cooked. [from 9th c.]

   There's nothing but raw fish in the freezer.

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

      I was 100% raw from 2014 until early 2018.

2. Not treated or processed; in a natural state, unrefined, unprocessed. [from 10th c.] (of materials, products, etc.)
   • 1997, A. J. Taylor, D. S. Mothram, editors, Flavour Science: Recent Developments‎^[1], Elsevier, →ISBN, page 63:

     Volatiles of kecap manis and its raw materials were extracted using Likens-Nickerson apparatus with diethyl ether as the extraction solvent. The extracts were then dried with anhydrous sodium sulfate, concentrated using a rotary evaporator followed by flushing using nitrogen until the volume was about 0.5 ml.

   raw cane sugar

   raw sewage

3. Having had the skin removed or abraded; chafed, tender; exposed, lacerated. [from 14th c.]
   • 1963, Margery Allingham, chapter 7, in The China Governess: A Mystery, London: Chatto & Windus, →OCLC:

     ‘Children crawled over each other like little grey worms in the gutters,’ he said. ‘The only red things about them were their buttocks and they were raw. Their faces looked as if snails had slimed on them and their mothers were like great sick beasts whose byres had never been cleared. […]’

   a raw wound

4. New or inexperienced. [from 16th c.]

   a raw beginner

5. Crude in quality; rough, uneven, unsophisticated. [from 16th c.]

   a raw voice

6. (statistics, of data) Uncorrected, without analysis. [from 20th c.]
   • 2010, "Under the volcano", The Economist, 16 Oct 2010:

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

7. Unpleasantly cold or damp. (of weather)

   a raw wind

   • 1599 (first performance), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Iulius Cæsar”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act I, scene ii]:

     a raw and gusty day

   • 1847 October 16, Currer Bell [pseudonym; Charlotte Brontë], chapter I, in Jane Eyre. An Autobiography. […], volume I, London: Smith, Elder, and Co., […], →OCLC, page 1:

     […] I never liked long walks, especially on chilly afternoons: dreadful to me was the coming home in the raw twilight, with nipped fingers and toes, […]

   • 1961 November 10, Joseph Heller, “The Eternal City”, in Catch-22 […], New York, N.Y.: Simon and Schuster, →OCLC, page 428:

     He made Yossarian think of cripples and of cold and hungry men and women, and of all the dumb, passive, devout mothers with catatonic eyes nursing infants outdoors that same night with chilled animal udders bared insensibly to that same raw rain.

8. Unmasked, undisguised, strongly expressed. (of an emotion, personality, etc.)

   raw emotion

9. Candid in a representation of unpleasant facts, conditions, etc.

   a raw description of the American political arena

10. Unrefined, crude, or insensitive, especially with reference to sexual matters. (of language)
11. (obsolete) Not covered; bare; bald.
    • 1596, Edmund Spenser, “Book V, Canto II”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC, stanza 11:

      with scull all raw

• See also Thesaurus:raw

raw

1. (slang, sex) Without a condom.

   We did it raw.

   • 2020, “What You Know Bout Love”, performed by Pop Smoke:

     You know what I be on, I'm about to go raw

• (without a condom): Thesaurus:condomless

raw (plural raws)

1. (sugar refining, sugar trade) An unprocessed sugar; a batch of such.
   • 1800, Louisiana Sugar Planters' Association, Lousiana Sugar Chemists' Association, American Cane Growers' Association, The Louisiana Planter and Sugar Manufacturer, volume 22, page 287:

     With the recent advance in London yellow crystals, however, the disproportion of the relative value of these two kinds has been considerably reduced, and a better demand for crystallized raws should consequently occur.

   • 1921, “The Journal of Industrial and Engineering Chemistry”, in American Chemical Society, Volume 13, Part 1, page 149:

     Early in the year the raws were melted to about 20 Brix in order to facilitate filtration.

   • 1939, The Commercial and Financial Chronicle, Volume 148, Part 2, page 2924:

     The world sugar contract closed 1 to 3 points net higher, with sales of only 36 lots. London raws sold at 8s. 4½d., and futures there were unchanged to 3d. higher.

2. A galled place; an inveterate sore.
3. (by extension, figurative) A point about which a person is particularly sensitive.
   • 1934, Harold Heslop, Goaf, page 29:

     In a moment Tom was angry. The women saw that Bill had touched him upon the raw, and they went out of the room to prepare a meal.

4. (anime fandom slang) A recording or rip of a show that has not been fansubbed.
5. (manga fandom slang) A scan that has not been cleaned (purged of blemishes arising from the scanning process) and has not been scanlated.

raw (third-person singular simple present raws, present participle rawing, simple past and past participle rawed)

1. (slang, transitive) To anally or vaginally penetrate without a condom.

• war-, RWA, ARW, war, War., War, WAR, WRA, Rwa

raw

1. (Mpakwithi) black

• Terry Crowley, The Mpakwithi dialect of Anguthimri (1981), page 188

• IPA^(key): /raw/
• Homophone: rgħaw (one pronunciation)

raw

1. third-person plural perfect of ra

From Old English hrēaw.

raw

1. Alternative form of rawe (“raw”)

From Old English rǣw, rāw.

raw

1. Alternative form of rewe (“row”)

rāw m

1. Alternative form of rǣw

• (Standard Tagalog) IPA^(key): /ˈɾaw/ [ˈɾaʊ̯]
• Rhymes: -aw
• Syllabification: raw

raw (Baybayin spelling ᜇᜏ᜔)

1. Alternative form of daw

   Masaya raw siya.

   They say he is happy.

• When the preceding word does not end with a vowel, ⟨w⟩, or ⟨y⟩, daw is used instead.

raw

1. Soft mutation of rhaw.