raw material

American  

noun

1. material before being processed or manufactured into a final form.

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raw material British  

noun

1. material on which a particular manufacturing process is carried out

2. a person or thing regarded as suitable for some particular purpose

   raw material for the army

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Etymology

Origin of raw material

First recorded in 1790–1800

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

raw material

Studios worried about their intellectual property being misused, and actors feared becoming little more than raw material for AI systems -- and made it a central plank of their strike action in 2023.

From Barron's ● Jul. 22, 2026

Cost savings will have a reduced year-on-year impact, raw material headwinds are increasing and the EX60 ramp will only really impact the fourth quarter.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 21, 2026

Privacy International also criticised the feature, telling the BBC it was "the latest sign AI companies see people's images and data as raw material to be exploited".

From BBC ● Jul. 8, 2026

Berlin has created a raw material fund, but it is still small.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 28, 2026

I don’t know how to write poetry, but there was a Spanish bookseller with a real genius for rhyme from whom I ordered poems and songs—anything whose raw material was paper and ink.

From "The House of the Spirits: A Novel" by Isabel Allende