Raw

Part of speech: adjective

Pronunciation: /ɹɔː/

Definitions

1. Not processed, treated, or refined; in a natural or uncooked state
2. In a state that has not undergone any form of processing or refinement and remains in its original form
3. Retaining a completely natural condition without having been altered by cooking, manufacturing, or other treatments

Etymology: The most surprising thing about "raw" is that it is a doublet of "crude," the two words sharing a single ancestor that split into separate paths. Both descend from a Germanic root, "*hrēwaz," which carried the sense of something in its natural, unprepared state. Old English "hrēow" and "hrēoh" meant "rough, fierce, wild, angry, troubled, sad, stormy," so the word's earliest feel was closer to wildness than to the kitchen. The same root produced a family of cognates across the Germanic languages: Dutch "rauw," German "roh," Swedish "rå," and Icelandic "hrár," all meaning "raw." Further afield, Latin "crūdus" (meaning "raw, bloody, uncooked") and Russian "кровь" ("krovʹ," "blood") are distant relatives, suggesting that the root once hovered around the idea of flesh or blood before narrowing to food. The meaning of "raw" as "not cooked" thus grew out of a broader sense of "untreated or unrefined," which is also why the word can describe unprocessed materials, such as raw silk or raw data, as well as food.

Synonyms: uncooked, unprocessed, natural

Antonyms: cooked, processed