raw

raw · adjective, adverb, noun, verb¹

1. Proto-Indo-European · derived from*krewh₂-“raw meat, fresh blood”
2. Proto-Germanic · inherited from*hrawaz
3. Proto-West Germanic · inherited from*hrau
4. Old English · inherited fromhrēaw“raw, uncooked”
5. Middle English · inherited fromrawe
6. English todayraw

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”), Danish, Norwegian Bokmål, Norwegian Nynorsk, and Swedish rå (“raw”), Faroese ráur (“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. Doublet of crude.

Raw · proper noun²

1. Old English · derived fromrāw“row”
2. English todayRaw

Topographic surname for someone who lived at a hedgerow or at a row of houses, from Old English rāw (“row”).

Words from the same roots

First known use, by meaning

• from 9th c. (of food) Not cooked.
• from 9th c. Subsisting on, or pertaining to, a diet of raw food.
• from 10th c. Not treated or processed; in a natural state, unrefined, unprocessed. (of materials, products, etc.)
• from 14th c. Having had the skin removed or abraded; chafed, tender; exposed, lacerated.
• from 16th c. New or inexperienced.
• from 16th c. Crude in quality; rough, uneven, unsophisticated.
• from 20th c. Uncorrected, without analysis.