race

Meanings

Noun

• A contest between people, animals, vehicles, etc. where the goal is to be the first to reach some objective. Example: Several horses run in a horse race, and the first one to reach the finishing post wins
• Swift progress; rapid motion; an instance of moving or driving at high speed.
• A race condition.
• A progressive movement toward a goal.
• A fast-moving current of water, such as that which powers a mill wheel.
• A water channel, esp. one built to lead water to or from a point where it is utilised.
• Competitive action of any kind, especially when prolonged; hence, career; course of life.
• The bushings of a rolling element bearing which contacts the rolling elements.
• A group of sentient beings, particularly people, distinguished by common ancestry, heritage or characteristics:
• A population geographically separated from others of its species that develops significantly different characteristics; a mating group.
• Subspecies.
• A breed or strain of domesticated animal.
• An infraspecific rank, a pathotype, pathovar, etc.
• 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.
• Characteristic quality or disposition.
• Ancestry.
• A rhizome or root, especially of ginger.

Verb

• To take part in a race (in the sense of a contest).
• To compete against in such a race.
• To move or drive at high speed; to hurry or speed.
• Of a motor, to run rapidly when not engaged to a transmission.
• To assign a race to; to perceive as having a (usually specified) race.

Related

Similar words

• subspecies
• breed
• variety

Narrower meaning words

• arms race
• boat race
• bumps race
• caucus race
• circuit race
• claiming race
• drag race
• egg and spoon race
• foot race
• horse race
• mill race
• one-horse race
• rat race
• relay race
• road race
• sack race
• space race
• stage race
• shuttle race
• three-legged race

Origin

• From Middle English race, from Old Norse rás, from Proto-Germanic *rēsō, from Proto-Indo-European *reh₁s-. Akin to Old English rǣs, Middle Low German râs, Dutch ras. Compare Danish ræs, Norwegian and Swedish ras, Norwegian rås.
• 1560s, via Middle French race from Italian razza (early 14th century), of uncertain origin.
• Diez and some other scholars suggest derivation from Proto-Germanic *raitō (whence Old High German reiza and Old Norse ríta), perhaps via Langobardic *raiza, which Körting notes is a literal rendering of Latin linea sanguinis. 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.
• Some scholars suggest derivation from Old Spanish raza, rasa, from earlier ras, res, from Arabic رَأْس, but Italian razza predates the Spanish word according to Diez and Meyer-Lübke.
• 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.
• Gianfranco Contini suggests the Italian word comes from Old French haraz, whence Modern French haras, from Old Norse hárr. Liberman considers this derivation the most likely.
• Other suggested Latin etyma:
• ** radius (perhaps via Vulgar Latin *radia) (per Baist).
• ** radix (per Ulrich); Liberman says "the semantic match is excellent", and race (which definitely derives from radix) shows that the phonology is plausible.
• ** *raptiare (per Körting).
• ** 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 and Basque arraca, supposedly meaning "stud animal" (Basque arrazza, "race", derives from Spanish).
• From Middle French, from Latin radix.