raze · noun — A slight wound; a scratch; also, a cut, a slit. It carries an Arena rating of 1455, earned across 3 head-to-head judged battles.
Definition from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 3.0).
Among words judged in Lexicurio's Arena, raze ranks #531 of 17,150 for Most Ingenious Words, #1,119 of 17,150 for Best Fossil-Poetry Words, #1,203 of 17,135 for Most Betrayed by Its Sound, #1,421 of 17,143 for Most Vivid Words.
raze is pronounced /ɹeɪz/.
Why “raze” is a great word
To demolish utterly, reducing a structure or settlement to bare earth and leaving no upright remnant. Its lineage traces to Middle English *rasen*, from Anglo-Norman and Old French *raser* (“to shave, graze, demolish”), from Vulgar Latin *rasare*, ultimately from Latin *rādere* (“to scrape, scratch, shave”). Unlike “demolish” (which can imply a controlled, procedural dismantling) or “erase” (which concerns the obliteration of marks or data), to raze is an act of total, tactile annihilation. It is the staccato crack of timber, the shudder of masonry cascading into dust, the final silence where a city’s silhouette once cut the sky—the world scraped clean, not by time or decay, but by deliberate, unrelenting force.
❧ Essay by Lexicurio’s AI · definition, etymology & citations from published sources
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 sha
noun
- A slight wound; a scratch; also, a cut, a slit.
- A swinging fence in a watercourse to prevent cattle passing through.
verb
- To level or tear down (a building, a town, etc.) to the ground; to demolish.
- To completely remove (someone or something), especially from a place, a situation, etc.; also, to remove from existence; to destroy, to obliterate.
- To erase (a record, text, etc.), originally by scraping; to rub out, to scratch out.e.g.“Suppleyng to Fame, I besought her grace, / And that it wolde please her, full tenderly I prayd, / Owt of her bokis Apollo to rase.” — 1523, John Skelton, “A Ryght Delectable Tratyse vpon a Goodly Garlande or Chapelet of Laurell, […]”, in Alexander Dyce, editor, The Poetical Works of John Skelton: […], volume I, London: Thomas Rodd,
- To wound (someone or part of their body) superficially; to graze.
- To alter (a document) by erasing parts of it.
- To carve (a line, mark, etc.) into something; to incise, to inscribe; also, to carve lines, marks, etc., into (something); to engrave.
- To remove (something) by scraping; also, to cut or shave (something) off.
- To rub lightly along the surface of (something); brush against, to graze.
- 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.
- To shave (someone or part of their body) with a razor, etc.
- To cut, scratch, or tear (someone or something) with a sharp object; to lacerate, to slash.
- To carve lines, marks, etc., into something.
- To graze or rub lightly along a surface.
- To penetrate through something; to pierce.
- Of a horse: to wear down its corner teeth as it ages, losing the black marks in their crevices.
Definitions & examples from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 3.0).
Words closest in meaning
By meaning, not spelling — each word's AI semantic fingerprint, nearest first.
- razure 67% match — The act of erasing or effacing, or the state of being effaced; obliteration. vs raze →
- razed 66% match — Slashed or striped in patterns. vs raze →
- razee 66% match — An armed ship with its upper deck cut away, and thus reduced to the next inferior rate, such as a seventy-four cut down to a frigate. vs raze →
- rasure 64% match — Scraping the surface of a parchment etc. in order to erase something from the document; erasure, more generally. vs raze →
- ravage 63% match — To devastate, destroy or lay waste to something. vs raze →
- demolish 62% match — To destroy (buildings, etc.), especially in a planned or intentional fashion. vs raze →
- ruin 62% match — The remains of a destroyed or dilapidated construction, such as a house or castle. vs raze →
- ruinate 57% match — To reduce to ruins; to destroy. vs raze →