Wiktionary

race

See also: Appendix:Variations of "race"

English

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Pronunciation

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Etymology 1

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People competing in a race.
 
A race taking water to a mill.
 
The outer race of a ball bearing.

From Middle English race, partially from Old English rǣs (“a race, swift or violent running, rush, onset”), from Proto-West Germanic *rās; and partially from Old Norse rás (“a running, race”); both from Proto-Germanic *rēsō (“a course”), from Proto-Indo-European *h₁reh₁s- (“to flow, rush”). Cognate with Middle Low German râs (“a strong current”), Dutch ras (“a strong whirling current”), Danish ræs, Norwegian and Swedish ras, Norwegian rås.

Noun

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race (countable and uncountable, plural races)

  1. A contest between people, animals, vehicles, etc. where the goal is to be the first to reach some objective.
    Several horses ran in a horse race: the first one to reach the finishing post won.
    The race to cure cancer
    The race around the park was won by Johnny, who ran faster than the others.
    We had a race to see who could finish the book the quickest.
    • 1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, Ecclesiastes 9:11:
      I returned, and saw vnder the Sunne, That the race is not to the swift, nor the battell to the strong, neither yet bread to the wise, nor yet riches to men of vnderstanding, nor yet fauour to men of skil; but time and chance happeneth to them all.
    • 1743, Alexander Pope, The Dunciad, London: M. Cooper, book 2, page 82, lines 58–60:
      "Behold that rival here! / "The race by vigour, not by vaunts is won; / "So take the hindmost, Hell."—He said, and run.
    • 2012 November 2, Ken Belson, “After Days of Pressure, Marathon Is Off”, in The New York Times‎[1]:
      After days of intensifying pressure from runners, politicians and the general public to call off the New York City Marathon in the wake of Hurricane Sandy, city officials and the event’s organizers decided Friday afternoon to cancel the race.
  2. Swift progress; rapid motion; an instance of moving or driving at high speed.
    Synonyms: dash, running, rush
    • 1631, Francis [Bacon], “VII. Century. [Experiments Solitary touching the Quicknesse of Motion in Birds.]”, in Sylua Syluarum: Or A Naturall Historie. In Ten Centuries. […], 3rd edition, London: […] William Rawley […]; [p]rinted by J[ohn] H[aviland] for William Lee […], →OCLC, page 166:
      The flight of many birds is swifter than the race of any beasts.
    • 1805, Good, John Mason, transl., The Nature of Things, volume 2, London: Longman, Hurst, Rees, and Orme, translation of De rerum natura by Titus Lucretius Carus, book 4, page 33, lines 190–191:
      Hence the rapid race / Of light, and lustre from th' effusive sun
    • 1847 December, “The Literature of Humbug”, in The Young American's Magazine, volume 1, page 318:
      And above all, it is an age of activity and enterprise, an age of new discoveries and new deviltries, an age of magnetic telegraphs and Mississippi bonds, and it would be indeed odd if, in the swift race of progress, the rogue did not keep his natural station in the van of the movement.
  3. (electronics, computing) A race condition; a bug or problem that occurs when two or more components attempt to use the same resource at the same time.
    Synonyms: race condition, race hazard
    • 1989, R. Raghuram, Computer Simulation of Electronic Circuits, New Delhi: Wiley Eastern, →ISBN, page 181:
      Many problems of oscillations and races are solved by this arrangement.
    • 1999, Max Hailperin, Barbara Kaiser, Karl Knight, “Java, Applets, and Concurrency”, in Concrete Abstractions, Brooks/Cole Publishing, →ISBN, page 622:
      Because a race by definition depends on the timing being just wrong, you could test your program any number of times, never observe any misbehavior, and still have a user run into the problem.¶ This occurrence is not just a theoretical possibility: Real programs have race bugs and real users have encountered them, sometimes with consequences that have literally been fatal.
    • 2012, Charles P. Pfleeger, Shari Lawrence Pfleeger, Analyzing Computer Security, Prentice Hall, page 79:
      As the name implies, a race condition means that two processes are competing within the same time interval, and the race affects the integrity or correctness of the computing tasks.
  4. A sequence of events; a progressive movement toward a goal.
    Synonyms: course, procedure, process, train; see also Thesaurus:sequence
    • 1603, Ben Jonson, Sejanus His Fall‎[2], act 2, scene 2:
      A race of wicked acts / Shall flow out of my anger, and o’erspread / The world’s wide face[.]
    • 1624, Francis Bacon, “Considerations Touching a War with Spain”, in Basil Montagu, editor, The Works of Francis Bacon, volume 5, William Pickering, published 1826, page 240:
      An offensive war is made, which is unjust in the aggressor; the prosecution and race of the war carrieth the defendant to invade the ancient patrimony of the first aggressor, who is now turned defendant; shall he sit down, and not put himself in defence?
  5. A fast-moving current of water.
    Synonym: rip
    • 1893, “Remarks upon the Way from Abingdon to Southamption, and other Places”, in The Manuscripts of His Grace the Duke of Portland, volume 2, London: Her Majesty's Stationery Office, page 288:
      Here are in these seas two dangerous races, the one called St. Alban's, the other Portland Race.
    • 1980, Pauline H. Gurewitz, Hydraulic Research in the United States and Canada, 1978, page 120:
      The existing analysis and program for the propeller-rudder interaction has been updated incorporating all the improvements concerned with the propeller loading distribution, including that associated with the fact that the rudder is immersed in the race of the propeller.
    • 2003 December, Jonathan Raban, “Julia and the Whirlpools”, in Cruising World, volume 29, number 12, page 40:
      This is an area of spectacular tidal races, rips, swirls, boils, whirlpools, overfalls, currents, and countercurrents. Scylla and Charybdis pale by comparison with the great maelstroms where the sea is trapped between Vancouver Island and the Canadian mainland.
  6. A water channel, especially one built to lead water to or from a point where it is utilised, such as that which powers a millwheel.
    Hyponyms: headrace, mill race, wheel-race, tailrace
    • 1885, James Leal Greenleaf, “Report on the Water-Powers of the Drainage Basins of Lakes Huron and Erie, in the United States”, in Reports on the Water-Power of the United States, Washington: Department of the Interior, part 1, pages 504–505:
      Evidently the future manufacturing development depends upon the hydraulic canal, so far as existing works are concerned, rather than upon the two races, which can never be enlarged to embrace a comprehensive improvement of the river, while the capabilities at th hydraulic basin are unrivaled. So far as can be learned there is no expectation of ever increasing materially the capacity of the races.
    • 1888, “Water Rights”, in Gold Mining Regulations, 1888, Parliament of South Australia, section 48, page 4:
      Any miners intending to divert and use water for mining or general purposes, or to cut a race or construct dams or reservoirs in connection therewith, shall give notice in writing thereof to the Warden […]
    • 1957 December 16, A. H. Mouat, R. C. Stuart, G. Mason, “Farming in Ida Valley, Central Otago”, in The New Zealand Journal of Agriculture, volume 95, number 6, page 587:
      Water for irrigation is stored in the high country behind the Upper Manorburn Dam. Two parallel races at different levels run along the west side of the valley and one race flowing along the east side is supplemented by water stored at the Poolburn Dam.
  7. A path that something or someone moves along.
    Synonyms: career, course, progress
  8. A guide or channel that a component of a machine moves along:
    1. (sewing, weaving) A groove on a sewing machine or a loom along which the shuttle moves.
      Synonym: shuttle race
      • 1860, Charles Cole, The Sewing Machine, and its Capabilities, page 53:
        I have lately seen a shuttle machine of Messrs. Grover Baker's construction, in which the shuttle worked in a semi-circular race and produced two stitches at each revolution of the wheel.
      • 1872 November 29, “Improved Loom for Weaving Fabrics of Any Width”, in The English Mechanic and Word of Science, volume 16, number 401, page 259:
        Meanwhile another lug on the shuttle-band engages another carrier at the other end of the loom, and the belt, continuing to move in the same direction, conveys the carrier across the race in a similar manner as above described.
    2. (engineering) A ring with a groove in which rolling elements (such as balls) ride, forming part of a rolling-element bearing (for example, a ball bearing).
      • 1965 August 15, Maintenance of Aeronautical Antifriction Bearings, NAVWEPS 01-1A-503, United States Bureau of Naval Weapons, section 2, page 5:
        These bearings do not employ a loading groove or filling slot but utilize an uninterrupted race groove containing the maximum number of balls that can be introduced by eccentric displacement of the races. Due to the relatively large size of the balls and the fact that the ball curvature is only slightly less than the race curvature, the bearings have comparatively high load carrying capacity in both axial and radial directions.
      • 1999, Steve Goldman, Vibration Spectrum Analysis, 2nd edition, New York: Industrial Press, →ISBN, page 90:
        The chances of picking up an inner race fault are small unless the load direction of the bearing coincides with the location of the accelerometer.
      • 2017, Tian Ran Lin, Kun Yu, Jiwen Tan, “Condition Monitoring and Fault Diagnosis of Roller Element Bearing”, in Pranav H. Darji, editor, Bearing Technology, Rijeka, Croatia: InTech, →DOI, →ISBN, page 40:
        The bearing comprises four mechanical components: an outer race, an inner race, rollers (balls), and a cage that holds the rollers (balls) in place.
  9. (gambling) A keno gambling session.
    • 2022, Kevin Blackwood, Swain Scheps, “Striking the Mother Lode: Keno and Bingo”, in Casino Gambling For Dummies‎[3], 2nd edition, John Wiley & Sons:
      Your odds are sometimes significantly better with video keno […] But because video keno plays so much faster, you're likely to lose more money over a given period. Live keno races start every 10 minutes, but you can make 100 bets on a video version in the same amount of time.
Hyponyms
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racing contests
Derived terms
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Translations
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Verb

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race (third-person singular simple present races, present participle racing, simple past and past participle raced)

  1. (intransitive) To take part in a race (in the sense of a contest).
    The drivers were racing around the track.
    • 1875, “Lichfield Open Meeting”, in John Henry Walsh, editor, Coursing Calendar for the Autumn Season 1874, page 187:
      Honesty raced up six lengths in front of Wandering Minstrel, turned, then raced past for the second, and lost his place at the hedge; some work followed to the plantation, but Honesty was always the faster in the racing stretches, and won easily.
    • 2023 May 10, “Athletics: Dina Asher-Smith set to race at London Stadium in July”, in BBC News‎[4]:
      "I cannot wait to race in front of the amazing home crowd," she added.
  2. (transitive) To compete against in a race (contest).
    I raced him to the car, but he was there first, so he got to ride shotgun.
    • 1871 March, “Our Van”, in Baily's Magazine of Sports & Pastimes, volume 21, page 306:
      […] a fresh fox popped out of a pit, and they raced him to Cherrington, where hounds were stopped at dark […]
    • 1928 November, Paschal N. Strong, “Signals”, in Boys' Life, volume 18, number 11, page 61:
      He pulled it down and saw Tech's full-back closing in. Counting on his own fresh condition, Jimmy raced him toward the sidelines, and got around him just in time to prevent being forced out. The goal was waiting for him twenty yards away, and to the accompaniment of a deafening shout from the stands he placed the pigskin across the goal line.
  3. (intransitive) To move or drive at high speed; to hurry or speed.
    Synonyms: rush, shift, zip, zoom
    As soon as it was time to go home, he raced for the door.
    Her heart was racing as she peered into the dimly lit room.
    • 1988, Lee Mavers, “There She Goes”, in Sixpence None the Richer‎[5], performed by Sixpence None the Richer, published 1997:
      There she goes / There she goes again / Racing through my brain / And I just can't contain / This feeling that remains
    • 2013 June 21, Chico Harlan, “Japan pockets the subsidy …”, in The Guardian Weekly, volume 189, number 2, page 30:
      Across Japan, technology companies and private investors are racing to install devices that until recently they had little interest in: solar panels. Massive solar parks are popping up as part of a rapid build-up that one developer likened to an "explosion."
    • 2020 December 2, Paul Bigland, “My weirdest and wackiest Rover yet”, in Rail, page 66:
      Racing on, we parallel the M5 doing 95mph, according to the app on my smartphone.
  1. (intransitive, of a motor) To run rapidly when not engaged to a transmission.
    • 1891 December, Arthur Conan Doyle, “The Man with the Twisted Lip”, in The Strand:
      "My mind is like a racing engine, tearing itself to pieces because it is not connected up with the work for which it was built."
    • 2005 June, James Faucett, “Snowbirds”, in Atlanta Magazine, volume 45, number 2, page 79:
      He put the transmission into drive and pressed the gas. The engine raced and the motor home rocked, gently, but did not move forward.
Derived terms
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Translations
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The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables. See instructions at Wiktionary:Entry layout § Translations.
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Etymology 2

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1560s, via Middle French race from Italian razza (early 14th century), of uncertain origin. Partially displaced native Middle English kinde (“kind, type, sort, race, nature”), whence English kind.

theories
  • Diez and some other scholars suggest derivation from Proto-Germanic *raitō (whence Old High German reiza (“line”) and Old Norse ríta (“to score, log, outline”)), perhaps via Lombardic *raiza (“line”), which Körting notes is a literal rendering of Latin linea sanguinis (“bloodline of descent”).[1] Anatoly Liberman says "the semantic fit is good" but the chronology falters; he says the Germanic word went out of use before the Italian word arose, and he says the intermediary is not attested.[2]
  • Some scholars suggest derivation from Old Spanish raza, rasa, from earlier ras, res (“head of cattle”), from Arabic رَأْس (raʔs, “head”), but Italian razza predates the Spanish word according to Diez and Meyer-Lübke.[3][1]
  • Meyer-Lübke suggested Latin generatio as the root; Körting says "the disappearance of two initial syllables hardly seems credible", but Meyer-Lübke notes the Venetian form narazza and the Old Bellunesian form naraccia, positing that after the first syllable ge- was lost, the remaining (una) narazza came to be reanalysed as una razza.[1]
  • Gianfranco Contini suggests the Italian word comes from Old French haraz (“troop of horses”),[4] whence Modern French haras (“breeding farm for horses; stud farm”), from Old Norse hárr (“grey-haired; hoary”). Liberman considers this derivation the most likely.[2]
  • Other suggested Latin etyma:
    • radius (perhaps via Vulgar Latin *radia) (per Baist).[1]
    • radix (“root”) (per Ulrich);[1] Liberman says "the semantic match is excellent", and race (“rhizome of ginger”) (which definitely derives from radix) shows that the phonology is plausible.[2]
    • *raptiare (“breed falcons”) (per Körting).[1][2]
    • The nominative of ratio (perhaps via an unattested intermediate form *razzo), as opposed to ragione which derives from the accusative rationem.
  • Other implausible suggestions include Slavic raz[2][1] and Basque arraca, supposedly meaning "stud animal"[2] (Basque arrazza, "race", derives from Spanish).

Noun

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Races of human by common heritage.
 
Races of dog.
 
Races of Brassica oleracea.
 
Wines of different race.

race (countable and uncountable, plural races)

  1. A group of sentient beings, particularly people, distinguished by common ancestry, heritage or characteristics (see Wikipedia's article on historical definitions of race):
    Synonyms: breed, strain, kind, lineage, people, variety
    1. A large group of people distinguished from others on the basis of a common heritage.
      Synonyms: clan, ethnicity, ethnic group, ethnie, nationality, tribe
      The Canadian race is one of the most vigorous on the globe.
      • 1838, Abraham Lincoln, Young Men's Lyceum address‎[6]:
        We toiled not in the acquirement or establishment of them—they are a legacy bequeathed us, by a once hardy, brave, and patriotic, but now lamented and departed race of ancestors.
      • 1895 November 11, Joseph Chamberlain, Speech given to the Imperial Institute:
        I believe that the British race is the greatest of the governing races that the world has ever seen.
      • 1917 February, Will Irwin, “War and the Race”, in The Advocate of Peace, volume 79, number 2, page 50:
        What is to become of the French race and the British race—yes, and the German race—if this thing keeps up?
    2. A large group of people distinguished from others on the basis of common physical characteristics, such as skin color or hair type.
      Hyponyms: black, white, caucasian, mongoloid
      Race was a significant issue during apartheid in South Africa.
      The Native Americans colonized the New World in several waves from Asia, and thus they are considered part of the same Mongoloid race.
      • 1881 July, Edward Burnett Tylor, “The Races of Mankind”, in Popular Science Monthly‎[7], volume 19, page 309:
        The race to which most anthropologists refer the native Americans is the Mongoloid of Eastern Asia, who are capable of accommodating themselves to the extremest climates, and who by the form of skull, the light brown skin, straight black hair, and black eyes, show considerable agreement with the American tribes.
      • 1958, Burgess, Alan, Lennart, Isobel, 1:41:15 from the start, in The Inn of the Sixth Happiness‎[8], spoken by Curd Jürgens as Colonel Lin Nan and Ingrid Bergman as Gladys Aylward, 20th Century Fox, →OCLC:
        Colonel Lin Nan: Would it offend you to be loved by a man of another race?
        Gladys Aylward: It would honor me.
      • 2012 March-April, Jan Sapp, “Race Finished”, in American Scientist‎[9], volume 100, number 2, page 164:
        Few concepts are as emotionally charged as that of race. The word conjures up a mixture of associations—culture, ethnicity, genetics, subjugation, exclusion and persecution. But is the tragic history of efforts to define groups of people by race really a matter of the misuse of science, the abuse of a valid biological concept?
    3. A large group of people distinguished from others on the basis of shared characteristics or qualities, for example social qualities.
      The advent of the Internet has brought about a new race of entrepreneur.
      • 1872 October 5, Prof. G[eorge] C[linton] Swallow, quotee, “Table-Talk”, in Appletons' Journal, volume 8, number 184, page 386:
        His opinion is founded on the alleged fact that there are scarely any drunkards in the wine-producing regions, where people drink wine with their food as freely as we do tea or coffee. "Give us what good wine we need," says the professor, "and the temperance crusade will be wellnigh ended when the present race of drunkards have passed away.
      • 1911, Robert W[illiam] Service, “The Men That Don't Fit In”, in The Spell of the Yukon:
        There's a race of men that don't fit in, / A race that can't stay still; / So they break the hearts of kith and kin, / And they roam the world at will.
      • 2009, Eunjoo M. Kim, edited by David L. Bartlett and Barbara Brown Taylor, Feasting on the Word: Preaching the Revised Common Lectionary, Year C, page 249:
        Indeed, all of us are called to join the race of faith. Our identity as Christians is not a burden or an obstacle for our lives, but is rather a gift, […]
    4. (fantasy, science fiction, mythology) A large group of nonhumans distinguished from others on the basis of a common heritage.
      A treaty was concluded between the race of elves and the race of men.
      • 1898, Herman Isidore Stern, The gods of our fathers: a study of Saxon mythology, page 15:
        There are two distinct races of gods known to Norse mythology[.]
      • 1999, Clifford A. Pickover, The Science of Aliens, page 47:
        Imagine a race of aliens that develops on a dimly lit world perpetually shrouded in clouds so that vision would be less useful for survival than on Earth.
      • 2008, BioWare, Mass Effect (Science Fiction), Redwood City: Electronic Arts, →ISBN, →OCLC, PC, scene: Normandy SR-1:
        Tali: My father is responsible for the lives of seventeen million people—our entire race is in his hands. And I'm his only child.
        (Note: Tali is a Quarian, an extraterrestrial species.)
  2. A group of organisms distinguished by common characteristics; often an informal infraspecific rank in taxonomy, below species:
    Synonyms: kind, strain, variety
    1. (biology) A population geographically separated from others of its species that develops significantly different characteristics; a mating group.
      Synonyms: ecospecies, ecotype, subspecies
      • 1968 December, Dale W. Rice, Victor B. Scheffer, A List of the Marine Mammals of the World, Special Scientific Report—Fisheries number 579, United States Fish and Wildlife Service, Phoca vitulina, page 6:
        Two races are certainly valid. The Atlantic race (P. v. vitulina) is distinguishable from the Pacific race (P. v. richardi Gray, 1864) by skull characters.
      • 2000, Edward O[sborne] Wilson, Sociobiology: The New Synthesis, 25th anniversary edition, Harvard University Press, →ISBN, page 9:
        A population that differs signicatly from other populations belonging to the same species is referred to as a geographic race or subspecies. Subspecies are separated from other subspecies by distance and geographic barriers that prevent the exchange of individuals, as opposed to the genetically based "intrinsic isolating mechanisms" that hold species apart.
    2. (botany) A strain of plant with characteristics causing it to differ from other plants of the same species.
      Hyponyms: cultigen, cultivar, indigen
      • 1859, Charles Darwin, “Variation under Domestication”, in On the Origin of Species:
        Nevertheless, as our varieties certainly do occasionally revert in some of their characters to ancestral forms, it seems to me not improbable, that if we could succeed in naturalising, or were to cultivate, during many generations, the several races, for instance, of the cabbage, in very poor soil (in which case, however, some effect would have to be attributed to the direct action of the poor soil), that they would to a large extent, or even wholly, revert to the wild aboriginal stock.
      • 1948 June, “Development of Races”, in Woody-Plant Seed Manual, Miscellaneous Publication no. 654, Washington, D.C.: United States Department of Agriculture, page 15:
        Tree races develop not only in different latitudes, but also at different altitudes and within mountainous regions. Since climate changes markedly with altitude as well as latitude, both kinds of development are included in the term climatic races. In addition, soil or site races may develop in areas similar climatically but characterized by different soil or site conditions.
      • 1995 September 11–14, Loreen Allphin, Michael D[ennis] Windham, Kimball T[aylor] Harper, “A Genetic Evaluation of Three Potential Races of the Rare Kachina Daisy”, in Southwestern Rare and Endangered Plants: Proceedings of the Second Conference, Flagstaff, Arizona, page 75:
        Our genetic evaluation suggests that the morphologically distinct race (Dolores River) is more closely related to the type materials than the ecologically distinct, high-elevation race.
    3. (animal husbandry) A breed or strain of domesticated animal.
      • c. 1596–1599, William Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice, act 5, scene 1:
        For do but note a wild and wanton herd, / Or race of youthful and unhandled colts, / Fetching mad bounds.
      • 1799, Joshua Rowlin, The Complete Cow-Doctor; Or, Farmer's Companion, 2nd edition, London, page 42:
        They have another breed, called the Dunlop cows, which are allowed to be the best race for yielding milk in Great Britain or Ireland, not only for large quantities, but also for richness in quality.
      • 1875, Augustus C. L. Arnold, The Living World, volume 1, Boston: Samuel Walker & Co, page 88:
        Great St. Bernard Dog—This race is nearly allied to the Newfoundland Dog in form, stature, hair, and colors; but the head and ears are like that of a Water Spaniel.
    4. (mycology, bacteriology) A strain of microorganism, fungi, etc.
      Synonyms: pathotype, pathovar
      • 1977 March 24, “Why is cereal fungus so resistant?”, in New Scientist, volume 73, number 1044, page 697:
        Now Mary MacDonald of the Plant Breeding Institute at Maris Lane, Cambridge, has made an interesting study which has duplicated the conditions under which new races arise. And she has produced at least one new fungal race.
      • 2018 December, Anna Kolobaeva, Olga Kotik, “Technological Approaches to Cider Quality”, in Advances in Engineering Research‎[10], volume 151, Atlantis Press, →DOI:
        The type of microorganisms is a very important factor influencing the quality of cider. Yeast of various producers and races result in different taste and flavor.
  3. (The addition of quotations indicative of this usage is being sought:) (by extension) A category or kind of thing distinguished by common characteristics.
    Synonyms: class, type; see also Thesaurus:class
    • 1786, Robert Burns, Address to the Haggis:
      Fair fa' your honest, sonsie face, / Great chieftain o the puddin'-race!
  4. (obsolete) Peculiar flavour, taste, or strength, as of wine; that quality, or assemblage of qualities, which indicates origin or kind, as in wine; hence, characteristic flavour.
    Synonym: typicity
    • c. 1625, Philip Massinger, A New Way to Pay Old Debts, act 1, scene 3:
      Is it [the wine] of the right race?
    • 1827, Christian Isobel Johnstone, “A Country Sunday Evening”, in Elizabeth de Bruce, volume 1, New York: W. Blackwood, page 130:
      On the day following Elizabeth's interview with Gideon, this innocent relish—the olives which gave zest, or the walnuts which gave race and richness, to Monkshaugh's moderate hebdomadal glass of old claret—was not forgotten.
    • 1875, Sebastian Evans, “The Eve of Morte Arthur”, in In the Studio, London: Macmillan & Co, pages 164–165:
      So sang the poet in his pride of place, / And Arthur bade the pages plenish well / The cups of all the kings with wine of race, / Osaye or Algarde, Rhenish or Rochell, / Vernage of Venice, Rhodes or Famagust, / Sweet Malvoisie or Cretan Muscadel,—
  5. (obsolete) Characteristic quality or disposition.
    Synonyms: attribute, idiosyncrasy, quirk, trait; see also Thesaurus:characteristic
    • c. 1603–1604, William Shakespeare, Measure for Measure, act 2, scene 4:
      And now I give my sensual race the rein.
    • 1685, Sir William Temple, Upon the Gardens of Epicurus; or, Of Gardening:
      […] some great race of fancy or judgment in the contrivance […]
    • 1807, Alexander Fraser Tytler, Lord Woodhouselee, Memoirs of the Life and Writings of the Honourable Henry Home of Kames, volume 1, book 2, chapter 1, Edinburgh: William Creech, page 181:
      His conversation, too, had a race and flavour peculiarly its own: it was nervous, sententious, and tinctured with genuine wit.
  6. (obsolete) The sexual activity of conceiving and bearing biological offspring.
    Synonyms: breeding, procreation, progenation, propagation, reproduction
    • 1658, Edward Topsell, “Of the horse”, in The History of Four-Footed Beasts and Serpents, page 234:
      It behooveth therefore that the Mares appointed for race, be well compacted, of a decent quality, being fair and beautiful to look upon, the belly and loins being great, in age not under three nor above ten years old.
    • 1667, John Milton, Paradise Lost‎[11], book 7:
      Male he created thee, but thy consort / Femal for Race; then bless’d Mankinde, and said, / Be fruitful, multiplie, and fill the Earth[.]
  7. (archaic, uncountable) Ancestry, lineage.
    Synonyms: extraction, family, house, line, pedigree, stirp
    • 1609, Ben Jonson, Epicœne, or The Silent Woman‎[12], act 3, scene 2:
      Yes, madam, believe it, she is a gentlewoman of very absolute behaviour, and of a good race.
    • 1785, Nathaniel William Wraxall, “Henry the Second”, in The History of France Under the Kings of the Race of Valois, 2nd edition, volume 2, London: C. Dilly, pages 52–53:
      Wars of religion, more sanguinary, cruel, and ruinous than even those of Henry the fifth and Edward the third, rise in succession under the three last princes of the race of Valois.
    • 1844 January–December, W[illiam] M[akepeace] Thackeray, “My Pedigree and Family.—Undergo the Influence of the Tender Passion.”, in “The Memoirs of Barry Lyndon, Esq. [The Luck of Barry Lyndon.]”, in Miscellanies: Prose and Verse, volume III, London: Bradbury and Evans, […], published 1856, →OCLC:
      That very estate which the Lyndons now possess in Ireland was once the property of my race.
  8. (obsolete) A step in a lineage or succession; a generation.
    Synonyms: age group, cohort
    • 1738 [1728], Ephraim Chambers, “Race”, in Cyclopaedia: Or, An Universal Dictionary Of Arts and Sciences‎[13], 2nd edition, London: D. Midwinter:
      In ſeveral orders of knighthood, as in that of Malta, &c. the candidates muſt prove a nobility of four races or deſcents.
    • 1870, Charles Dickens, “The Nun's House”, in The Mystery of Edwin Drood:
      Perhaps this is the reason why it is an article of faith with the servants, handed down from race to race, that the departed Tisher was a hairdresser.
    • 1929 December, Johnny Burke, “No Short Skirts To Their Knees”, in Burke's Popular Songs‎[14], St. John's, Newfoundland: Long Brothers:
      For the old stock is fast dying out, Jennie, / And a young race is taking their place, / In our grandmothers' day they had sense, Jennie, / No powder or paints on their face.
  9. (obsolete, uncountable) Progeny, offspring, descendants.
    Synonyms: get, issue, seed
    • c. 1606–1607, William Shakespeare, Antony and Cleopatra, act 3, scene 13:
      Have I my pillow left unpressed in Rome, / Forborne the getting of a lawful race, / And by a gem of women, to be abused / By one that looks on feeders?
    • 1737, Richard Glover, Leonidas, book 2, Baltimore: Neal, Wills & Cole, published 1814, page 35:
      The good man besought him. Let the king / Propitious hear a parent. In thy train / I have five sons. Ah! leave my eldest born, / Thy future vassal, to sustain my age!' / The tyrant fell reply'd. 'Presumptuous man, / Who art my slave, in this tremendous war, / Is not my person hazarded, my race, / My consort?[']
    • 1842, Alfred, Lord Tennyson, “Locksley Hall”, in Poems, volume 2, London: Edward Moxon, page 109:
      There the passions cramp’d no longer shall have scope and breathing-space; / I will take some savage woman, she shall rear my dusky race. / Iron-jointed, supple-sinew’d, they shall dive, and they shall run, / Catch the wild goat by the hair, and hurl their lances in the sun[.]
Derived terms
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Translations
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Verb

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race (third-person singular simple present races, present participle racing, simple past and past participle raced)

  1. To assign a race to; to perceive as having a (usually specified) race.
    • 1996, Philosophical Studies in Education, page 151:
      To be raced as black in the U.S. translates symbolically into being considered inferior to whites, lazy, immoral, boisterous, violent, and sexually promiscuous.
    • 2006, Athena D. Mutua, Progressive Black Masculinities?, Routledge, →ISBN, page 30:
      From this perspective, the project of progressive blackness entails the edification of black people and the elimination of all forms of domination that limit this edification for all those raced as black.
    • 2008, George Yancy, Black Bodies, White Gazes: The Continuing Significance of Race, Rowman & Littlefield, →ISBN, page 46:
      By avoiding being raced as white, whites are able to maintain the illusion that they have always been individuals, that they have always accomplished their achievements through merit alone.
    • 2020 March 24, Sophie Lewis, “The coronavirus crisis shows it's time to abolish the family”, in opendemocracy.net‎[15]:
      [T]he private family qua mode of social reproduction still, frankly, sucks. It genders, nationalizes and races us. It norms us for productive work.
  2. (obsolete) To pass down certain phenotypic traits to offspring.
    Synonyms: come true, breed true
    • 1738 [1728], Ephraim Chambers, “Race”, in Cyclopaedia: Or, An Universal Dictionary Of Arts and Sciences‎[16], 2nd edition, London: D. Midwinter:
      D'Hervieux obſerves that it is uſual to put the female canary bird to the male goldfinch, linnet, or the like, to breed; but for his part, he ſhould chuſe to put the male canary-bird to the female goldfinch, linnet, &c. becauſe the male uſually races more than the female, i. e. the young ones take more after the male than after the female.

Etymology 3

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A race of ginger.

Mid 16th century. From Middle French raïz, raiz, rais (“root”), from Latin radix (“root”), from Proto-Italic *wrādīks, from Proto-Indo-European *wréh₂ds.

Noun

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race (plural races)

  1. A rhizome or root, especially of ginger.
    • 1610, William Shakespeare, The Winter's Tale, act IV, scene III, line 45:
      I must have saffron to color the warden pies; mace; dates, none—that's out of my note; nutmegs, seven; a race or two of ginger, but that I may beg; four pounds of prunes, and as many of raisins o' th' sun.
    • 1777, Edward Terry, A Voyage to East-India, page 62:
      They have onions and garlick, and some herbs and small roots for sallads; and in the southernmoft parts, ginger growing almost in every place; the large races whereof are there very excellently well preserved, as we may know by our tasting them in England.
    • 1842, Gibbons Merle, The Domestic Dictionary and Housekeeper's Manual, page 433:
      On the third day after this second boiling, pour all the syrup into a pan, put the races of ginger with it, and boil it up until the syrup adheres to the spoon.
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Translations
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Etymology 4

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See raze.

Verb

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race (third-person singular simple present races, present participle racing, simple past and past participle raced)

  1. Obsolete form of raze.
    Synonyms: demolish, destroy, tear up; see also Thesaurus:destroy
    • c. 1450, chapter 23, in Henry Benjamin Wheatley, editor, Merlin or the Early History of King Arthur, volume 2, Early English Text Society, published 1899, page 424:
      […] and after he be-heilde towarde the fier, and saugh the flesshe that the knaue hadde rosted that was tho I-nough, and raced it of with his hondes madly, and rente it a-sonder in peces, and wette it in mylke, and after in the hony, and ete as a wood man that nought ther lefte of the flessh; […]

References

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  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 1.6 Eric Voegelin, The History of the Race Idea: From Ray to Carus, volume 3
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 2.5 Anatoly Liberman, The Oxford Etymologist Looks at Race, Class and Sex (but not Gender), or, Beating a Willing Horse
  3. ^ Diez, Etymologisches Wörterbuch der romanischen Sprachen, "Razza."
  4. ^ Giacomo Devoto, Avviamento all'etimologia italiana, Mondadori

Further reading

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Anagrams

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Danish

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Etymology 1

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Borrowed from French race, from Italian razza.

Pronunciation

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Noun

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race c (singular definite racen, plural indefinite racer)

  1. race (subdivision of species)
  2. breed
Inflection
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Declension of race
common
gender 		Singular Plural
indefinite definite indefinite definite
nominative race racen racer racerne
genitive races racens racers racernes

Etymology 2

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Borrowed from English race.

Alternative forms

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Pronunciation

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  • IPA(key): [ˈɹɛjs], [ˈʁɛˀs]

Noun

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race n (singular definite racet, plural indefinite race)

  1. a race (a contest where the goal is to be the first to reach some objective)
  2. a rush
Inflection
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Declension of race
neuter
gender 		Singular Plural
indefinite definite indefinite definite
nominative race racet race racene
genitive races racets races racenes

Etymology 3

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Borrowed from English race.

Alternative forms

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Pronunciation

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Verb

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race (imperative race, infinitive at race, present tense racer, past tense racede, perfect tense er/har racet)

  1. to race (to compete in a race, a contest where the goal is to be the first to reach some objective)
  2. to rush

Further reading

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Dutch

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Pronunciation

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Etymology 1

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Borrowed from English race.

Noun

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race m (plural races, diminutive raceje n)

  1. a speed contest, a race
    Synonym: wedloop
Derived terms
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Etymology 2

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See the etymology of the corresponding lemma form.

Verb

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race

  1. inflection of racen:
    1. first-person singular present indicative
    2. (in case of inversion) second-person singular present indicative
    3. imperative
    4. (dated or formal) singular present subjunctive

French

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Etymology

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As Middle French rasse "entirety of ancestors and descendants of the same family or people", from ca. 1480, spelling Middle French race recorded in 1549, from Italian razza (13th century), of uncertain origin (more at razza).

Pronunciation

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Noun

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race f (plural races)

  1. race (classification)
  2. kind
    Synonym: espèce
  3. (zoology) breed
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Descendants

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  • → German: Rasse
    • → Czech: rasa
    • → Polish: rasa
    • → Serbo-Croatian: rasa
    • → Slovene: rasa
  • → Romanian: rasă

References

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Further reading

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Anagrams

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Middle French

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Etymology

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16th century (spelling rasse from 1480), from Italian razza (early 14th century), of uncertain origin.

Noun

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race f (plural races)

  1. race; breed
    • 1595, Michel de Montaigne, Essais, book II, chapter 11:
      Je le doy plus à ma fortune qu’à ma raison : Elle m’a faict naistre d’une race fameuse en preud’hommie, et d’un tres-bon pere
      I owe more to my luck than to my intelligence. It was luck that meant I was born into a race famous for its gentlemanliness, and to a very good father

Descendants

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Polish

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Pronunciation

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Noun

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race f

  1. nominative/accusative/vocative plural of raca

Swedish

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Etymology 1

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From English race.

Pronunciation

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Noun

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race n

  1. race (competition)
Declension
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Declension of race
nominative genitive
singular indefinite race races
definite racet racets
plural indefinite race races
definite racen racens
Derived terms
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See also

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Etymology 2

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Noun

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race c

  1. Obsolete form of ras.
Declension
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Declension of race
nominative genitive
singular indefinite race races
definite racen racens
plural indefinite racer racers
definite racerna racernas

References

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Retrieved from "https://en.wiktionary.org/w/index.php?title=race&oldid=82885428"
  NODES
Association 1
Bugs 1
Idea 1
idea 1
INTERN 1
Note 6
Project 2
USERS 1
Verify 23