raze
Americanverb (used with object)
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razes,
present (3rd person singular)
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razed,
past participle, past
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razing
present participle
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to tear down; demolish; level to the ground.
to raze a row of old buildings.
-
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
Synonym Usage
See destroy.
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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razesimple
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razessimple
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have razedperfect
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has razedperfect
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am razingprogressive
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are razingprogressive
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is razingprogressive
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have been razingperfect progressive
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has been razingperfect progressive
Past
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razedsimple
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had razedperfect
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was razingprogressive
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were razingprogressive
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had been razingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of raze
1540–50; Middle English rasen < Middle French raser < *Vulgar Latin rāsāre to scrape, frequentative of Latin rādere to scrape
Explanation
Raze means to tear an object down to the ground. Before a real estate developer can raze a family's home to build another skyscraper, he's going to have to cut them a big check. Raze is most often used to refer to knocking buildings down for construction projects, but it can also describe tearing down other objects. You can raze the sand dunes in order to make the beach perfectly flat. Raze comes from the word rasen, meaning "to scrape or erase," and it sounds similar to the word erase, which can help you remember its meaning. If you raze something, in a way it has been erased — it no longer exists in its previous form.
Vocabulary lists containing raze
The Tragedy of Macbeth
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A Tale of Two Cities
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Beowulf
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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:
Melton said it pains him to raze the downtown convention center, built in 1981, because it was the brainchild of the city’s first Black mayor, Richard Hatcher.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 4, 2026
Less than a year after watching flames raze his home in the Altadena foothills, Ted Koerner has moved into a brand new house, one of the first to rebuild in this Los Angeles suburb.
From Barron's ● Jan. 4, 2026
Should she decide to raze the existing dwelling, she may find herself facing some resistance, given its impressive architectural pedigree.
From MarketWatch ● Oct. 29, 2025
It was only on Wednesday, a full two days after the demolition had started, that the administration admitted that the plan was to raze the entire East Wing.
From Salon ● Oct. 25, 2025
“It takes a village to raze a camp.”
From "Internment" by Samira Ahmed
"Destructive human activities, like seafloor dredging, which razes entire marine communities, have turned seafloors into structurally simplified habitats with little settlement substrata or localised adult oysters to seed recovery," says Dr McAfee.
From Science Daily ● May 9, 2024
Today, 73 percent of Arlington’s residentially zoned land is single-family, meaning that if a developer razes a house, it may be replaced only with another single-family house.
From Washington Post ● Mar. 17, 2023
Detroit Blight Busters builds and renovates homes, but also razes homes seen as blights on their neighborhoods.
From Salon ● Sep. 3, 2021
One plan largely preserves the George C. Page Museum, another lays another story on top, while the last razes the museum and relocates the tar pits’ famous mammoth statues to a new museum building.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 31, 2019
Our quick-returning folly cancels all; As the tide rushing razes what is writ In yielding sands, and smooths the letter’d shore.
From Young's Night Thoughts With Life, Critical Dissertation and Explanatory Notes by Edward Young
Towering over the threadbare lawn, Omeltchenko worked on what was the seat of the regional administration -- an imposing white stone Stalinist-era building almost completely razed by Russian strikes last year.
From Barron's ● Oct. 30, 2026
It gives a rundown of the heat-related climate impacts on the UK, with "Britain on fire", "homes razed" and "drought declared".
From BBC ● Aug. 15, 2026
Before the home was fully razed, Franklin snapped up the land on which it sat for $6 million, according to The Wall Street Journal.
From MarketWatch ● Jul. 20, 2026
It’s a different story around the corner, where residents of Imperial Avalon Mobile Estates got word in 2019 that their park would be sold, razed and developed into apartments and shops.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 17, 2026
There is much speculation, as might be imagined, as to whether we shall remain at Norfolk, now that it is razed, or whither we might go.
From "The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing, Traitor to the Nation, Volume II: The Kingdom on the Waves" by M.T. Anderson
Many of these fires in Indonesia's forests and peatlands are caused by the razing of vegetation to clear land - a practice known as "slash and burn".
From BBC ● Oct. 13, 2026
In 2021 the Chicago Bears signed a purchase agreement for land at a former racetrack in nearby Arlington Heights, with the intention of razing the existing facility and building a new stadium.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Apr. 1, 2026
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 ● Mar. 3, 2026
The Black Summer bushfires raged across Australia's eastern seaboard from late 2019 to early 2020, razing millions of hectares, destroying thousands of homes and blanketing cities in noxious smoke.
From Barron's ● Jan. 11, 2026
He contented himself, therefore, with razing the fortifications of Acre and Jaffa, of Samaria and Gaza.
From The Egypt of the Hebrews and Herodotos by A. H. (Archibald Henry) Sayce
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