Etymograph

English

raw

Raw comes from Old English hrēaw ‘raw, uncooked’, and goes back to Proto-Indo-European *krewh₂-.

  1. Proto-Indo-Europeanc. 4500–2500 BCE*krewh₂-‘raw meat’reconstructed
  2. Proto-Germanicc. 500 BCE–200 CE*hrawaz‘raw’reconstructed
  3. Proto-West Germanicc. 200–500 CE*hraureconstructed
  4. Old Englishc. 450–1150hrēaw‘raw’
  5. Middle Englishc. 1150–1500rawe
  6. Englishearliest quotation 1596raw

attested reconstructed ? uncertain or disputed deepest recorded ancestor

Lineage

  1. Proto-Indo-Europeanc. 4500–2500 BCE*krewh₂-‘raw meat’reconstructed
  2. Proto-Germanicc. 500 BCE–200 CE*hrawaz‘raw’reconstructed
  3. Proto-West Germanicc. 200–500 CE*hraureconstructed
  4. Old Englishc. 450–1150hrēaw‘raw’
  5. Middle Englishc. 1150–1500rawe
  6. Englishearliest quotation 1596raw

Earliest quotation: 1596, Edmund Spenser, Book V, Canto II: “with scull all raw”.

The story

Related also to Old English hrēow, hrēoh (‘rough, fierce, wild, angry, disturbed, troubled, sad, stormy, tempestuous’).

Linked words

through Proto-Indo-European *krewh₂- ‘raw meat, fresh blood’

cruel, crude, pancreas, ree, 8 more

Today it means

adj (of food) Not cooked.

Language periods are conventional ranges, not dates for this word.

Etymograph / Proto-Indo-European *krewh₂- / raw

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