Other forms: razed, razing, razeed, razes
To raze is to level a building or a town to the ground. Raze the village, razed to the ground, razed by fire.
It nearly always appears as razed to the ground, which is strictly redundant since razing is levelling. It means total destruction with nothing standing. Note the spelling against raise, which sounds identical and means the opposite; and that the Latin radere means to scrape.
1verbrazeTo level a building or a town to the ground.
“The invading army razed the town, leaving nothing but ashes.”
raze is a levelling.
Middle English rasen comes from Old French raser, from Latin radere, to scrape. Erase and razor come from the same scraping.
Latin
rāsus — scraped; shaved
Vulgar Latin
*raso — to shave; to scrape; to scratch; to touch lightly, graze
Old French
raser — to shave; to touch lightly, graze; to level off (grain, etc.) in a measure; to demolish, tear down; to erase; to polish; to wear down
Middle French
raser
Anglo-Norman
raser
Middle English
rasen
English, today
raze
Built from
The verb is derived from Middle English rasen, racen, rase (“to scrape; to shave; to erase; to pull; to strip off; to pluck or tear out; to root out (a tree, etc.); to pull away, snatch; to pull down; to knock down; to rend, tear apart; to pick clean, strip; to cleave, slice; to sever; to lacerate; to pierce; to carve, engrave; to dig; (figurative) to expunge, obliterate; to alter”), from Anglo-Norman raser, rasere, rasser, Middle French raser, and Old French raser (“to shave; to touch lightly, graze; to level off (grain, etc.) in a measure; to demolish, tear down; to erase; to polish; to wear down”), from Vulgar Latin raso (“to shave; to scrape; to scratch; to touch lightly, graze”), from Latin rāsus (“scraped; shaved”), the perfect passive participle of rādō (“to scrape, scratch; to shave; to rub, smooth; to brush along, graze”). a doublet of rash (etymology 2 and etymology 7). The noun is derived from the verb.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA