Emily Dickinson Lexicon

RAISE, v.t. [raze; Goth. raisyan, ur-raisyan, to raise, to rouse, to excite; ur-reisan, to rise. This word occurs often in the Gothic version of the Gospels, Luke iii. 8, John vi. 40, 44. In Sw. resa signifies to go, walk or travel, and to raise; Dan. rejser, the same. These verbs appear to be the L. gredior, gressus, without the prefix; and gradior is the Shemitic רדה, which has a variety of significations, but in Syriac, to go, to walk, to pass, as in Latin. Whether the Swedish and Danish verbs are from different roots, blended by usage or accident, or whether the different senses have proceeded from one common signification, to move, to open, to stretch, let the reader judge.]

1. To lift; to take up; to heave; to lift from a low or reclining posture; as, to raise a stone or weight; to raise the body in bed. The angel smote Peter on the side and raised hint up. – Acts xii.
2. To set upright; as, to raise a mast.
3. To set up; to erect; to set on its foundations and put together; as, to raise the frame of a house.
4. To build; as, to raise a city, a fort, a wall, &c. I will raise forts against thee. – Is. xxix. Amos ix.
5. To rebuild. They shall raise up the former desolations. – Is. lxi.
6. To form to some highth by accumulation; as, to raise a heap of stones. – Josh viii.
7. To make; to produce; to amass; as, to raise a great estate out of small profits.
8. To enlarge; to amplify. – Shak.
9. To exalt; to elevate in condition; as, to raise one from a low estate.
10. To exalt; to advance; to promote in rank or honor; as, to raise one to an office of distinction. This gentleman came to be raised to great titles. – Clarendon.
11. To enhance; to increase; as, to raise the value of coin; to raise the price of goods.
12. To increase in current value. The plate pieces of eight were raised three pence in the piece. – Temple.
13. To excite; to put in motion or action; as, to raise a tempest or tumult. He commandeth and raiseth the stormy wind. – Ps. cvii.
14. To excite to sedition, insurrection, war or tumult; to stir up. – Acts xxiv. Æneas then employs his pains / In parts remote to raise the Tuscan swains. – Dryden.
15. To rouse; to awake; to stir up. They shall not awake, nor be raised out of their sleep. – Job xiv.
16. To increase in strength; to excite from languor or weakness. The pulse is raised by stimulants, sometimes by venesection.
17. To give beginning of importance to; to elevate into reputation; as, to raise a family.
18. To bring into being. God vouchsafes to raise another world / From him. – Milton.
19. To bring from a state of death to life. He was delivered for our offenses, and raised again for our Justification. – Rom. iv. 1 Cor. xv.
20. To call into view from the state of separate spirits; as, to raise a spirit by spells and incantations. – Sandys.
21. To invent and propagate; to originate; to occasion; as, to raise a report or story.
22. To set up; to excite; to begin by loud utterance as, to raise a shout or cry. – Dryden.
23. To utter loudly; to begin to sound or clamor. He raised his voice against the measures of administration.
24. To utter with more strength or elevation; to swell. Let the speaker raise his voice.
25. To collect; to obtain; to bring into a sum or fund. Government raises money by taxes, excise and imposts. Private persons and companies raise money for their enterprises.
26. To levy; to collect; to bring into service; as, to raise troops; to raise an army. – Milton.
27. To give rise to. – Milton.
28. To cause to grow; to procure to be produced, bred or propagated; as, to raise wheat, barley, hops, &c.; to raise horses, oxen or sheep. – New England. [The English now use grow in regard to crops; as, to grow wheat. This verb intransitive has never been use in New England in a transitive sense, until recently some persons have adopted it from the English books. We always use raise, but in New England it is never applied to the breeding of the human race, as it is in the southern states. In the north we say to raise wheat, and to raise horses or cattle, but not to raise men; though we say to raise a sickly child.]
29. To cause to swell, heave and become light; as, to raise dough or paste by yeast or leaven. Miss Liddy can dance a jig and raise paste. – Spectator.
30. To excite; to animate with fresh vigor; as, to raise the spirits or courage.
31. To ordain; to appoint; or to call to and prepare; to furnish with gifts and qualifications suited to a purpose; a Scriptural sense. I will raise them up a prophet from among their brethren. – Deut. xviii. For this cause have I raised thee up, to show in thee my power. – Exod. ix. Judg. ii.
32. To keep in remembrance. – Ruth iv.
33. To cause to exist by propagation. – Matth. xxii.
34. To incite; to prompt. – Ezra i.
35. To increase in intensity or strength; as, to raise the heat of a furnace.
36. In seamen's language, to elevate, as an object by gradual approach to it; to bring to be seen at a greater angle; opposed to laying; as, to raise the land; to raise a point. – Mar. Dict. To raise a purchase, in seamen's language, is to dispose instruments or machines in such a manner as to exert any mechanical force required. – Mar. Dict. To raise a siege, is to remove a besieging army and relinquish an attempt to take the place by that mode of attack, or to cause the attempt to be relinquished.

RAIS-ED, pp.

Lifted; elevated; exalted; promoted; set upright; built; made or enlarged; produced; enhanced; excited; restored to life; levied; collected; roused; invented and propagated; increased.

RAIS-ER, n.

One who raises; that which raises; one that builds; one that levies or collects; one that begins, produces or propagates. – Bacon. Taylor.

RAIS-IN, n. [rāzn; Fr. and Ir. id.; Arm. ræsin, resin; D. rozyn; G. rosine, a raisin, and rosinfarbe, crimson, (raisin-color;) Dan. rosin. In Dan. and Sw. rosen signifies the erysipelas. It is evident that the word is from the same root as red and rose, being named from the color. See Red and Rose. This word is in some places pronounced corruptly reezn. The pronunciation of Sheridan, Perry and Jameson accords with that which prevails in the eastern states, which is regular, and which I have followed.]

A dried grape. Grapes are suffered to remain on the vines till they are perfectly ripe, and then dried in an oven, or by exposure to the heat of the sun. Those dried in the sun are the sweetest. – Hill.

RAIS-ING, n.

1. The act of lifting, setting up, elevating, exalting, producing, or restoring to life.
2. In New England, the operation or work of setting up the frame of a building.

RAIS-ING, ppr.

Lifting; elevating; setting upright; exalting; producing; enhancing; restoring to life; collecting; levying; propagating, &c.

RA'JAH, or RA'JA, n. [L. rex, regis.]

In India, a prince. Some of the rajahs are said to be independent princes; others are tributary to the Mogul. – Encyc.

RA'JAH-SHIP, n.

The dignity or principality of a rajah. – Asiat. Res.

RAKE, n.¹ [Sax. raca, race; G. rechen; Ir. raca; W. rhacai, rhacan. See the Verb.]

An instrument consisting of a head-piece in which teeth are other light things which are spread over a large surface, or in gardens for breaking and smoothing the earth.

RAKE, n.² [Dan. rækel; probably from the root of break.]

A loose, disorderly, vicious man; a man addicted to lewdness and other scandalous vices. – Addison. Pope.

RAKE, n.³ [Sax. racan, to reach.]

1. The projection of the upper parts of a ship, at the highth of the stem and stern, beyond the extremities of the keel. The distance between a perpendicular line from the extremity of stem or stern to the end of the keel, is the length of the rake; one the fore-rite, the other the rake-oft.
2. The inclination of a mast from a perpendicular direction. – Mar. Dict.
3. The forward inclination of a mill-saw.

RAKE, v.i.

1. To scrape: to scratch into for finding something; to search minutely and meanly; as, to rake into a dunghill. – South.
2. To search with minute inspection into every part. One is for raking in Chaucer for antiquated words. – Dryden.
3. To pass with violence or rapidity. Pas could not stay, but over him did rake. – Sidney.
4. To seek by raking; as, to rake for oysters.
5. To lead a dissolute, debauched life. – Shenstone.
6. To incline from a perpendicular direction; as, a mast rakes aft.

RAKE, v.t. [Sax. racian; Sw. raka; Dan. rager, to shave, to rake; Corn. rackan; W. rhacanu; Ir. racam; G. rechen; Fr. racler; Arm. racla. The D. hark, harken, is our harrow, but of the same family, the great family of break, crack, L. frico. Class Rg, No. 34, 38, 47.]

1. Properly, to scrape; to rub or scratch with something rough; as, to rake the ground.
2. To gather with a rake; as, to rake hay or barley.
3. To clear with a rake; to smooth with a rake; as, to rule a bed in a garden; to rake land.
4. To collect or draw together something scattered; to gather by violence; as, to rake together wealth; to rake together slanderous tales; to rake together the rabble of a town.
5. To scour; to search with eagerness all corners of a place. The statesman rakes the town to find a plot. – Swift.
6. In the military art, to enfilade; to fire in a direction with the length of any thing; particularly in naval engagements, to rake is to cannonade a ship on the stern or head, so that the balls range the whole length of the deck. Hence the phrase, to rake a ship fore and aft. To rake up, applied to fire, is to cover the fire with ashes.

RAK-ED, pp.

Scraped; gathered with a rake; cleaned with a rake; cannonaded fore and aft.

RAKE-HELL, n. [Dan. rækel; now contracted into rake; properly rakel.]

A lewd, dissolute fellow; a debauchee; a rake.

RAKE-HEL-LY, a.

Dissolute; wild. – B. Jonson.

RAK-ER, n.

One that rakes.

RAKE-SHAME, n.

A vile dissolute wretch. – Milton.

RAK-ING, n.

1. The act of using a rake; the act or operation of collecting with a rake, or of cleaning and smoothing with a rake.
2. The space of ground raked at once; or the quantity of hay, &c. collected by once passing the rake.

RAK-ING, ppr.

1. Scraping; gathering with a rake; cleaning and smoothing with a rake; cannonading in the direction of the length; inclining. And raking chase-guns through our sterns they send. – Dryden.
2. adj. That rakes; as, a raking fire or shot.

RAK-ISH, a.

Given to a dissolute life; lewd; debauched. – Richardson.

RAK-ISH-LY, adv.

In a rakish manner.

RAK-ISH-NESS, n.

Dissolute practices.

RAL'LI-ANCE, n.

Act of rallying.

RAL'LI-ED, pp.

1. Reunited and reduced to order.
2. Treated with pleasantry.