Raise

How to spell raise

5 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce raise

What does raise mean?

1. verbTo lift something to a higher position, or to increase a level, amount, or degree.
2. nounAn increase in salary or wages.

Raise in a sentence

• verb

  Please raise your hand if you have a question during the meeting.

• noun

  After two strong years, she finally asked her manager for a raise.

• verb

  The landlord plans to raise the rent again next spring.

• noun

  The company gave every employee a modest raise this quarter.

Where does raise come from?

Language of origin: Old Norse

Raise entered English from Old Norse reisa, meaning 'to lift up' or 'to set upright', brought by Scandinavian settlers during the Viking age and adopted into northern English speech around the 1200s. That Norse verb belongs to the same ancient Germanic family as the native English 'rise' and the causative 'rear', all tracing back to a root meaning 'to go up'. The key difference is that 'rise' is something you do yourself, while 'raise' is something you do to an object, lifting or elevating it. Over the centuries the word gathered many practical senses: to build, to grow crops or children, to collect money, and to increase an amount. Its sound makes it a notorious trap, since it shares its pronunciation with 'raze' (to demolish completely) and with 'rays' (beams of light), so the meaning, not the sound, has to guide the spelling.

How the word is built

• raise (from Old Norse reisa: to lift, set upright); single root, no affixes