Raised

How to spell raised

6 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce raised

What does raised mean?

1. verbPast tense of raise: lifted upward, increased, brought up, or collected.
2. adjectiveLifted or set higher than the surrounding surface.

Raised in a sentence

• verb

  The charity raised thousands of pounds for the new clinic.

• adjective

  The brochure had a raised logo you could feel with your fingertips.

• verb

  The landlord raised the rent at the end of the lease.

• adjective

  The garden featured a raised bed for the herbs.

Where does raised come from?

Language of origin: Old Norse

This is the past tense and past participle of the verb 'raise', which English borrowed from Old Norse 'reisa', meaning 'to lift up' or 'to set upright'. That Norse verb was the causative counterpart of 'risa', 'to rise', so 'raise' literally meant 'to cause to rise', and the modern senses of lifting, increasing, and bringing up all flow from that single idea. The word arrived during the Viking-influenced period of Middle English, around the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, and gradually crowded into territory the native English 'rear' had once held. The spelling settled on the 'ai' digraph rather than a simple vowel, which is the main reason the past form is so easily mixed up with its sound-alike 'razed' (from Latin radere, 'to scrape'), a completely unrelated word meaning to demolish. Remembering that 'raised' shares its 'rise/raise' family helps keep that distinction clear in writing.

How the word is built

• rais- (from Old Norse reisa: to lift, set upright)
• -ed (past tense / past participle suffix)