Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • adjective Uncooked.
  • adjective Being in a natural condition; not processed or refined.
  • adjective Not finished, covered, or coated.
  • adjective Not having been subjected to adjustment, treatment, or analysis.
  • adjective Undeveloped or unused.
  • adjective Recently finished; fresh.
  • adjective Inexperienced or untrained.
  • adjective Having subcutaneous tissue exposed.
  • adjective Inflamed; sore.
  • adjective Unpleasantly damp and chilly.
  • adjective Powerfully impressive; stark.
  • adjective Direct in description and explicit in realistic detail.
  • adjective Crude, vulgar, or coarse.
  • adjective Nude; naked.
  • adjective Engaged in without the protection of a condom.
  • adjective Done in a rough or unrestrained manner. Used of sex.
  • adverb Slang Without a condom; unprotected.
  • idiom (in the raw) In a crude or unrefined state.
  • idiom (in the raw) Nude; naked.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • Existing in the state of natural growth or formation; unchanged in constitution by subjection to heat or other alterative agency; uncooked, or chemically unaltered: as, raw meat, fish, oysters, etc.; most fruits are eaten raw; raw medicinal substances; raw (that is, unburnt) umber.
  • In an unchanged condition as regards some process of fabrication; unwrought or unmanufactured.
  • In a rudimental condition; crude in quality or state; primitively or coarsely constituted; unfinished; untempered; coarse; rough; harsh.
  • Harshly sharp or chilly, as the weather; bleak, especially from cold moisture; characterized by chilly dampness.
  • Crude or rude from want of experience, skill, or reflection; of immature character or quality; awkward; untrained; unfledged; illinstructed or ill-considered: said of persons and their actions or ideas.
  • Looking like raw meat, as from lividness or removal of the skin; deprived or appearing destitute of the natural integument: as, a raw sore; a raw spot on a horse.
  • Feeling sore, as from abrasion of the skin; harshly painful; galled.
  • In ceramics, unbaked—that is, either fresh from the potters' wheel or the mold, or merely dried without the use of artificial heat.
  • Synonyms Raw, Crude. These words, the same in ultimate origin and in earlier meaning, have drawn somewhat apart. Raw continues to apply to food which is not yet cooked, as raw potatoes; but crude has lost that meaning. Raw is applied to material not yet manufactured, as cotton, silk; crude rather to that which is not refined, as petroleum, or matured, as a theory or an idea.
  • noun A raw article, material, or product.
  • noun A raw, galled, or sore place; an established sore, as on a horse; hence, soreness or sensitiveness of feeling or temper.
  • noun In botany, same as rag, 3 .
  • noun An obsolete or dialectal form of row.
  • noun An untrained mustang or cow-pony.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun A raw, sore, or galled place; a sensitive spot.
  • adjective Not altered from its natural state; not prepared by the action of heat;
  • adjective Hence: Unprepared for use or enjoyment; immature; unripe; unseasoned; inexperienced; unpracticed; untried
  • adjective obsolete, obsolete Not worked in due form; in the natural state; untouched by art; unwrought.
  • adjective obsolete Not distilled.
  • adjective Not spun or twisted.
  • adjective Not mixed or diluted.
  • adjective Not tried; not melted and strained.
  • adjective Not tanned.
  • adjective Not trimmed, covered, or folded under.
  • adjective obsolete, obsolete Not covered; bare.
  • adjective obsolete Bald.
  • adjective Deprived of skin; galled.

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Middle English, from Old English hrēaw; see kreuə- in Indo-European roots.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Middle English raw, rau, from Old English hrēaw ("raw, uncooked"), from Proto-Germanic *hrawaz, *hrēwaz (“raw”), from Proto-Indo-European *krewa-, *kreuh₂ (“raw meat, fresh blood”). Cognate with Scots raw ("raw"), Dutch rauw ("raw"), German roh ("raw"), Swedish  ("raw"), Icelandic hrár ("raw"), Latin crūdus ("raw, bloody, uncooked"), Irish cró ("blood"), Albanian krupë ("disgust, vomit"), Lithuanian kraujas ("blood"), Russian кровь ("blood"). Related also to Old English hrēow, hrēoh ("rough, fierce, wild, angry, disturbed, troubled, sad, stormy, tempestuous"). More at ree.

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