raze
Americanverb (used with object)
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to tear down; demolish; level to the ground.
to raze a row of old buildings.
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to shave or scrape off.
verb
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to demolish (a town, buildings, etc) completely; level (esp in the phrase raze to the ground )
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to delete; erase
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archaic to graze
Related Words
See destroy.
Other Word Forms
- razer noun
- unrazed adjective
Etymology
Origin of raze
1540–50; Middle English rasen < Middle French raser < *Vulgar Latin rāsāre to scrape, frequentative of Latin rādere to scrape
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.
Paramount would not look to raze its celebrated studio lot — the oldest operating film studio in Los Angeles — because of various restrictions on historic buildings there.
From Los Angeles Times
The two largest blazes—the Palisades fire and the Eaton fire—ripped through entire communities, razing hundreds of properties, many of which remain nothing more than empty lots.
From MarketWatch
In recent years, development projects in Egypt's second city have razed historic parks and -- most egregiously to locals -- privatised and obstructed much of its Mediterranean coastline.
From Barron's
The AOL campus has largely been razed, in part to make way for the new digital economy.
That was the first step of what Puerto Rico hopes will be a rebirth of a Winter Olympics program that had been razed to the ground.
From Los Angeles Times
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.
