raid
Americannoun
-
raids
plural
-
a sudden assault or attack, as upon something to be seized or suppressed.
a police raid on a gambling ring.
- Synonyms:
- seizure
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Military. a sudden attack on the enemy, as by air or by a small land force.
-
a vigorous, large-scale effort to lure away a competitor's employees, members, etc.
-
Finance. a concerted attempt of speculators to force stock prices down.
verb (used with object)
-
raids,
present (3rd person singular)
-
raided,
past participle, past
-
raiding
present participle
-
to make a raid on.
-
to steal from; loot.
a worry that the investment fund is being raided.
-
to entice away from another.
Large companies are raiding key personnel from smaller companies.
-
to indulge oneself by taking from, especially in order to eat.
raiding the cookie jar.
verb (used without object)
-
raids,
present (3rd person singular)
-
raided,
past participle, past
-
raiding
present participle
noun
verb
-
to make a raid against (a person, thing, etc)
-
to sneak into (a place) in order to take something, steal, etc
raiding the larder
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
-
raidsimple
-
raidssimple
-
have raidedperfect
-
has raidedperfect
-
am raidingprogressive
-
are raidingprogressive
-
is raidingprogressive
-
have been raidingperfect progressive
-
has been raidingperfect progressive
Past
-
raidedsimple
-
had raidedperfect
-
was raidingprogressive
-
were raidingprogressive
-
had been raidingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of raid
1375–1425; Middle English (north and Scots ) ra ( i ) de, Old English rād expedition, literally, a riding; doublet of road
Explanation
A raid is a military attack, especially a quick surprise attack. The word comes from the military but has spread out — police might raid a shady nightclub to find bad guys, or a babysitter might raid the refrigerator. When an army launches a raid, you can say they raid, or attack abruptly. This verb can also be used to mean "search" or "enter unexpectedly," as when police officers raid a suspect's home or summer campers' raid a neighboring cabin. The military meaning is the oldest, and the word comes from the Scottish rade, "a riding" or "a journey," from the Old English rad, which is also the root of road.
Vocabulary lists containing raid
Chinese History - Introductory
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Indiana Jones Vocabulary
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Chinese History - Middle School and High School
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
In this week’s episode of Amicus, Dahlia Lithwick talks about the raid of Minnesota Rep. Ilhan Omar’s D.C. home with Andrew Weissmann, former chief of the Fraud Section at the Department of Justice.
From Slate ● Oct. 22, 2026
A January 1945 air raid, she wrote, destroyed her home along with her “beloved notebooks + books + letters + pictures” and a red pearl necklace.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 21, 2026
On the day AFP visited the school, air raid alerts rang out five times between 7:30 am and 5:00 pm.
From Barron's ● Oct. 21, 2026
Orantes also expressed frustration with the handling of her father’s arrest — to which federal authorities had clearly alerted some media, who were brought along for the raid.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 20, 2026
My mom's labor had to be induced to avoid any risk of me being born during a bombing raid.
From "Americanized" by Sara Saedi
"These e-bikes are blighting communities, they're making it unsafe for people to live - so we're taking action," said Supt Emma Fox, who oversees the raids.
From BBC ● Nov. 2, 2026
“She’s had a firsthand account into some of the way that the immigration raids are directly impacting our students,” Pérez said.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 27, 2026
“Many Hindu families in Ohio live with fear—fear of ICE raids, profiling based on accent or appearance and the constant anxiety of family separation,” Pyakurel wrote.
From Slate ● Oct. 23, 2026
An under-appreciated factor hurting them as much as high mortgage rates and inflation has been immigration raids.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 21, 2026
November 7: The first Palmer raids are carried out in twenty-three American cities.
From "1919 The Year That Changed America" by Martin W. Sandler
She discovered that the event had been raided, she says, and some of her family and friends arrested by the IRGC.
From BBC ● Nov. 2, 2026
The smaller clubs get raided by the big dogs.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 29, 2026
In August, agents seized his electronic devices and raided Swalwell’s Washington home over the weekend, even briefly holding the former lawmaker at San Francisco International Airport, a person familiar with the inquiry told The Times.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 27, 2026
Police interrogated him, raided his home and office before accusing him of plotting against the constitutional order.
From Barron's ● Oct. 21, 2026
Now his girlfriend looks like she raided a kid’s craft closet, stuck the reject stuff on hooks, and jammed them in her earlobes.
From "Keeping Pace" by Laurie Morrison
In October 1916, in Tujunga Canyon near Sunland, a farmer named Cornelius Johnson set out a trap for a bear that had been raiding his grapevines.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 13, 2026
The companies on the AI frontier that are raiding universities for all kinds of talent can offer unimaginable salaries and stock options.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 1, 2026
Thirty-five bodies and more than 100 sets of ashes were found by police raiding Legacy Independent Funeral Directors in Hull in March 2024.
From BBC ● Jul. 31, 2026
It would merely be a different flavor of raiding the Treasury for personal gain.
From Slate ● May 16, 2026
I considered raiding the hydrogen fuel cells, but I need those batteries to maintain power at night.
From "The Martian" by Andy Weir
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Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
