From Middle English rawe, raw, rau, from Old English hrēaw, from Proto-West Germanic *hrau, from Proto-Germanic *hrawaz, *hrēwaz ("raw"), from Proto-Indo-European *krewh₂-.

Cognate with Scots raw, Dutch rauw, German roh, Swedish rå, Icelandic hrár, Latin crūdus, Irish cró, Lithuanian kraujas, Russian кровь. Related also to Old English hrēow, hrēoh ("rough, fierce, wild, angry, disturbed, troubled, sad, stormy, tempestuous"). More at ree.

• (British) enPR: rô, IPA: /ɹɔː/
• (America) enPR: rô, IPA: /ɹɔ/
• (cot-caught) enPR: rä, IPA: /ɹɑ/

raw (comparative rawer, superlative rawest)

1. (cooking) (of food) Not cooked. [from 9th c.]

   There's nothing but raw fish in the freezer.

   1. Subsisting on, or pertaining to, a diet of raw food.

      I was 100% raw from 2014 until early 2018.

2. Not treated or processed; in a natural state, unrefined, unprocessed. [from 10th c.] (of materials, products, etc.)

   raw cane sugar

   raw sewage

3. Having had the skin removed or abraded; chafed, tender; exposed, lacerated. [from 14th c.]
   • 1963, Margery Allingham, chapter 7, in The China Governess: A Mystery, London: Chatto & Windus, →OCLC ↗:

     ‘Children crawled over each other like little grey worms in the gutters,’ he said. ‘The only red things about them were their buttocks and they were raw. Their faces looked as if snails had slimed on them and their mothers were like great sick beasts whose byres had never been cleared. […]’

   a raw wound

4. New or inexperienced. [from 16th c.]

   a raw beginner

5. Crude in quality; rough, uneven, unsophisticated. [from 16th c.]

   a raw voice

6. (statistics, of data) Uncorrected, without analysis. [from 20th c.]
   • 2010, "Under the volcano", The Economist, 16 Oct 2010:

     What makes Mexico worrying is not just the raw numbers but the power of the cartels over society.

7. Unpleasantly cold or damp. (of weather)

   a raw wind

   • 1599 (first performance), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Iulius Cæsar”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC ↗, [Act I, scene ii]:

     a raw and gusty day

   • 1847 October 15, Currer Bell [pseudonym; Charlotte Brontë], chapter I, in Jane Eyre. An Autobiography. […], volume I, London: Smith, Elder, and Co., […], →OCLC ↗, page 1 ↗:

     […] I never liked long walks, especially on chilly afternoons: dreadful to me was the coming home in the raw twilight, with nipped fingers and toes, […]

   • 1961 November 10, Joseph Heller, “The Eternal City”, in Catch-22 […], New York, N.Y.: Simon and Schuster, →OCLC ↗, page 428 ↗:

     He made Yossarian think of cripples and of cold and hungry men and women, and of all the dumb, passive, devout mothers with catatonic eyes nursing infants outdoors that same night with chilled animal udders bared insensibly to that same raw rain.

8. Unmasked, undisguised, strongly expressed. (of an emotion, personality, etc.)

   raw emotion

9. Candid in a representation of unpleasant facts, conditions, etc.

   a raw description of the American political arena

10. Unrefined, crude, or insensitive, especially with reference to sexual matters. (of language)
11. (obsolete) Not covered; bare; bald.
    • 1596, Edmund Spenser, “Book V, Canto II”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC ↗, stanza 11:

      with scull all raw

• See also Thesaurus:raw

• French: cru
• German: roh
• Italian: crudo
• Portuguese: cru, crua
• Russian: сыро́й
• Spanish: crudo

• French: brut
• German: Roh-
• Italian: grezzo, non raffinatato, naturale
• Portuguese: bruto
• Russian: необрабо́танный
• Spanish: crudo

• Italian: aperta
• Russian: сыро́й
• Spanish: en carne viva

• Italian: vergine
• Portuguese: inexperiente, xucro (Brazil)
• Russian: нео́пытный

• German: rau
• Italian: grossolano, grossolana, roco, afono, rozzo
• Russian: гру́бый

• French: brut
• German: Roh-
• Italian: bruto, arraffazzonato, inconcludente, a casaccio
• Portuguese: bruto
• Russian: необрабо́танный
• Spanish: bruto

• Italian: afoso, umido, gelido
• Russian: прони́зывающий

• French: nu
• Russian: го́лый

1. (slang, sex) Without a condom.

   We did it raw.

• (without a condom) Thesaurus:condomless

• Italian: senza protezione, senza preservativo
• Portuguese: no pelo

raw (plural raws)

1. (sugar refining, sugar trade) An unprocessed sugar; a batch of such.
   • 1939, The Commercial and Financial Chronicle, Volume 148, Part 2, [http://books.google.com.au/books?id=zmodAQAAMAAJ&q=%22raws%22+-intitle:%22%22+-inauthor:%22%22&dq=%22raws%22+-intitle:%22%22+-inauthor:%22%22&hl=en&sa=X&ei=auKCT5LaFOvOmAXY2uHqBw&redir_esc=y page 2924]:

     The world sugar contract closed 1 to 3 points net higher, with sales of only 36 lots. London raws sold at 8s. 4½d., and futures there were unchanged to 3d. higher.

2. A galled place; an inveterate sore.
3. (by extension, figurative) A point about which a person is particularly sensitive.
   • 1934, Harold Heslop, Goaf, page 29:

     In a moment Tom was angry. The women saw that Bill had touched him upon the raw, and they went out of the room to prepare a meal.

4. (anime fandom) A recording or rip of a show that has not been fansubbed.
5. (manga fandom) A scan that has not been cleaned purged of blemishes arising from the scanning process and has not been scanlated.

raw (raws, present participle rawing; simple past and past participle rawed)

1. (slang, transitive) To anally or vaginally penetrate without a condom.

1. (India, acronym) Init of Research and Analysis Wing

   Synonyms: R&AW

raw (uncountable)

1. (games) Abbreviation of rules as written: the actual rules appearing in the rulebook, as opposed to house rules, or to rules that might have been intended (in the event of a mistake in the rulebook).

   Synonyms: RaW

2. (computing) Initialism of read after write, a kind of data hazard.

Topographic surname for someone who lived at a hedgerow or at a row of houses, from Old English rāw.

1. Surname.