raw
Americanadjective
-
uncooked, as articles of food.
a raw carrot.
-
not having undergone processes of preparing, dressing, finishing, refining, or manufacture.
raw cotton.
- Synonyms:
- makeshift, rough, unprepared
-
unnaturally or painfully exposed, as flesh, by removal of the skin or natural integument.
-
painfully open, as a sore or wound.
-
crude in quality or character; not tempered or refined by art or taste.
raw humor.
-
ignorant, inexperienced, or untrained.
a raw recruit.
- Synonyms:
- unpracticed, unskilled, green, undisciplined
-
brutally or grossly frank.
a raw portrayal of human passions.
-
brutally harsh or unfair.
a raw deal; receiving raw treatment from his friends.
-
disagreeably damp and chilly, as the weather or air.
a raw, foggy day at the beach.
-
not diluted, as alcoholic spirits.
raw whiskey.
-
unprocessed or unevaluated.
raw data.
noun
-
a sore or irritated place, as on the flesh.
-
unrefined sugar, oil, etc.
idioms
adjective
-
(of food) not cooked
raw onion
-
(prenominal) in an unfinished, natural, or unrefined state; not treated by manufacturing or other processes
raw materials for making steel
raw brick
-
(of an edge of material) unhemmed; liable to fray
-
(of the skin, a wound, etc) having the surface exposed or abraded, esp painfully
-
ignorant, inexperienced, or immature
a raw recruit
-
(prenominal) not selected or modified
raw statistics
-
frank or realistic
a raw picture of the breakdown of a marriage
-
(of spirits) undiluted
-
coarse, vulgar, or obscene
-
recently done; fresh
raw paintwork
-
(of the weather) harshly cold and damp
-
informal unfair; unjust (esp in the phrase a raw deal )
noun
-
informal a sensitive point
his criticism touched me on the raw
-
-
informal without clothes; naked
-
in a natural or unmodified state
life in the raw
-
Usage
What does raw mean? Raw describes something that hasn’t been cooked, as in The butcher put a pile of raw meat on the table. Raw can also describe something that hasn’t been processed or refined, as in Raw cotton must be cleaned of plant parts before it can be made into thread or fabric. Raw also refers to skin that was painfully removed, as in The uncomfortable pants rubbed my knees raw. As well, raw can refer to someone who lacks experience or training, as in The rookie detective was too raw to be of any help to the veteran investigator. Raw is rarely used as a noun. It is sometimes used in the idiom in the raw, meaning a natural, unprocessed state or, more informally, referring to something done while naked. Example: The diners became very ill after eating chicken that was more raw that cooked.
Synonym Usage
Raw, crude, rude refer to something not in a finished or highly refined state. Raw applies particularly to material not yet changed by a process, by manufacture, or by preparation for consumption: raw cotton; raw leather. Crude refers to that which still needs refining: crude petroleum. Rude refers to what is still in a condition of rough simplicity or in a makeshift or roughly made form: rude agricultural implements; the rude bridge that arched the flood.
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of raw
First recorded before 1000; Middle English; Old English hrēaw, hrǣw; cognate with Dutch rauw, German roh; akin to Latin crūdus “raw” ( see crude), cruor “blood,” Greek kréas “raw flesh” ( see creatine)
Explanation
Something that's raw is uncooked. A ripe raw tomato tastes very different from one that's slowly roasted with olive oil. Raw food isn't heated, and while raw fruits and vegetables are usually delicious, raw eggs and meat can be dangerous. When you use the word raw to describe things that aren't edible, it generally means "in a natural, untreated state," like raw silk or raw wood. You might also have raw feelings or raw emotions — these are basic and out in the open. The Old English root is hreaw, "uncooked," from a Germanic source.
Vocabulary lists containing raw
The SAT: Multiple-Meaning Words, List 3
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The New SAT: Multiple-Meaning Words
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"The Drummer Boy of Shiloh"
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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:
The full food hygiene inspection report, released after a BBC Wales Freedom of Information request, revealed the restaurant was ordered to stop serving raw lobster, with "significant hazards" not properly identified.
From BBC ● Jul. 28, 2026
Staples at taverns across the state, Maid-Rites more closely resemble the sloppy joe of school lunchrooms: the ground-beef sandwiches are served on a soft bun and topped with mustard, pickles and raw onions.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 28, 2026
Cosmo itched so much from allergies that he constantly scratched himself raw and unleashed a howl when we were gone for too long, so loud and haunting that my neighbor thought it was a siren.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 28, 2026
The focus was on raw concentrates of the rechargeable battery ingredient lithium, with most of its hundreds of thousands of tons of annual production shipped out to China, the world's largest maker of electric vehicles.
From Barron's ● Jul. 26, 2026
His voice rose, a raw hiss of disgust.
From "Impossible Creatures" by Katherine Rundell
Gilgamesh’s lament is not the stylized keening of epic tradition—not Achilles’ highfalutin howls after Hector strikes down Patroclus—but something rawer, humbler, more recognizably human.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Apr. 24, 2026
“In some way, we’re in the early Cold War – the Fifties and Sixties, so a much rawer time.”
From BBC ● Aug. 17, 2024
There’s a glossy sheen and an intensity of color to their images, a level of aestheticization that initially seems inconsistent with Ben Hania’s pursuit of a rawer, messier truth.
From Los Angeles Times ● Nov. 3, 2023
When he was approached by Sony in 1998, Robison signed with its Lucky Dog imprint, which was devoted to rawer country.
From Seattle Times ● Sep. 10, 2023
Beneath your world of skies and faces and buildings exists a rawer and older world, a place where surface planes disintegrate and sounds ribbon in shoals through the air.
From "All the Light We Cannot See" by Anthony Doerr
Hailed by Rolling Stone as “the rawest, most revealing music documentary in years,” the film is so unflinching that Perry remained backstage while it played at Tribeca.
From Los Angeles Times ● May 7, 2026
Maybe it’s because I was being accepted for the rawest version of myself: loud, artistic, sometimes judgmental, but always warm and open to new people and experiences.
From Salon ● Feb. 1, 2025
That had been sport in its rawest form without a penny at stake.
From BBC ● Sep. 2, 2024
It’s genuinely therapeutic to just peel back all the layers and say the rawest, realest version of your truth.
From Seattle Times ● Jan. 3, 2024
The files on the murders of the Osage contained history in its rawest form: bits of data vacuumed up without any chronology or narrative, like a novel whose pages were out of order.
From "Killers of the Flower Moon" by David Grann
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
