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ENGLISH · A WORD WITH POSSIBILITIES

raw.

(of food) Not cooked.

3 characters1 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

adj/ɹɔː/UK/ɹɔː(ɹ)//ɹɔ/US/ɹɑ/

  1. (of food) Not cooked.

    There's nothing but raw fish in the freezer.
    He ate raw beef for dinner.

  2. (of food) Not cooked. Subsisting on, or pertaining to, a diet of raw food.

    I was 100% raw from 2014 until early 2018.

  3. Not treated or processed; in a natural state, unrefined, unprocessed. (of materials, products, etc.)

    raw cane sugar
    raw sewage

  4. Having had the skin removed or abraded; chafed, tender; exposed, lacerated.

    a raw wound

  5. New or inexperienced.

    a raw beginner

  6. Crude in quality; rough, uneven, unsophisticated.

    a raw voice

  7. Uncorrected, without analysis.

  8. Unpleasantly cold or damp. (of weather)

    a raw wind

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

    raw emotion

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

    a raw description of the American political arena

  11. Unrefined, crude, or insensitive, especially with reference to sexual matters. (of language)

  12. Without a condom.

    slang
    raw sex

  13. Not covered; bare; bald.

    obsolete
Where this word comes from

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.

adv/ɹɔː/UK/ɹɔː(ɹ)//ɹɔ/US/ɹɑ/

  1. Without a condom.

    slang
    We did it raw.
Where this word comes from

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.

noun/ɹɔː/UK/ɹɔː(ɹ)//ɹɔ/US/ɹɑ/

  1. An unprocessed sugar; a batch of such.

  2. A galled place; an inveterate sore.

  3. A point about which a person is particularly sensitive.

    broadly · figuratively

  4. Unadulterated narcotics, especially crack cocaine

    slang · uncountable

  5. A recording or rip of a show that has not been fansubbed.

    slang

  6. A scan that has not been cleaned (purged of blemishes arising from the scanning process) and has not been scanlated.

    slang
Where this word comes from

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.

verb/ɹɔː/UK/ɹɔː(ɹ)//ɹɔ/US/ɹɑ/

  1. To sexually penetrate without a condom.

    slang · transitive
Where this word comes from

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.

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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.

Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.