Raider

How to spell raider

6 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce raider

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does raider mean?

1. nounA person who takes part in a sudden surprise attack to steal goods or cause damage.

Raider in a sentence

• A lone raider slipped past the bank guards and emptied the vault.

• The museum hired night security after a raider stole a painting.

Where does raider come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

Raider is built on the noun raid, which is itself a fascinating piece of word history: raid began as a Scottish and northern English variant of the word road, both descending from the Old English rad, meaning a riding or a journey on horseback. That noun was closely tied to the verb ride, so a raid was originally a mounted incursion, a quick hostile expedition by men on horses. The form had nearly died out until the novelist and antiquarian Sir Walter Scott revived raid in the early 1800s in his border tales, after which it spread back into general English. The agent noun raider, meaning one who takes part in a raid, followed naturally by adding the everyday -er ending. Because road and raid share the same Old English ancestor, the spelling with the -ai- pair (not -ay- or -ea-) is the detail worth fixing in memory.

How the word is built

• raid (a sudden surprise attack)
• -er (agent suffix: one who does)