Other forms: racing, races, raced
A race is a competition to see who is fastest — a running race, a horse race, the race to the finish. As a verb it means both to compete in one and to move very fast.
The other sense is the one about human populations, and it needs care in every language. Race in that sense is a social category rather than a biological one, and modern writing usually prefers ethnicity or heritage where a description is actually needed; racism and racial are the standard derived terms and are used constantly. A third, technical sense: in biology a race is a subgroup within a species, which is a neutral term of art. And the race in the human race means the whole species.
1nounraceA competition to find out who is fastest.
“She won the race by half a second.”
2verbcompeteTo compete in a race, or to move very fast.
“He raced down the stairs and out of the door.”
3noungroupA group of people sharing a common ancestry, as a social category.
“The law forbids discrimination on grounds of race.”
4nouncontestA contest to be first to achieve something.
“The race to build a vaccine took eleven months.”
Too few real examples of this word to estimate which sense is commonest.
race is a contest, or a group of people.
The competition sense comes from Old Norse ras, a running or a rush. The population sense is a completely different word, borrowed from French race in the sixteenth century, of uncertain origin. Two unrelated words, one spelling, and a great deal of trouble.
Old English
rǣs
Middle English
race
English, today
race
From Middle English race, from Old English rǣs. 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"; whence German Low German Raas (“mad rush, rage, fury”), Dutch ras (“a strong whirling current”), Danish ræs, Norwegian - and Swedish ras, Norwegian rås.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA