race

name

1. A surname.

noun

Etymology: Mid 16th century. From Middle French raïz, raiz, rais (“root”), from Latin radix (“root”), from Proto-Italic *wrādīks, from Proto-Indo-European *wréh₂ds.

1. A rhizome or root, especially of ginger.

   “I must have saffron to color the warden pies; mace; dates, none—that's out of my note; nutmegs, seven; a race or two of ginger, but that I may beg; four pounds of prunes, and as many of raisins o' th' sun.”

   “They have onions and garlick, and some herbs and small roots for sallads; and in the southernmoft parts, ginger growing almost in every place; the large races whereof are there very excellently well preserved, as we may know by our tasting them in England.”

verb

Etymology: PIE word *wréh₂ds From Middle English racen, rasen (“to come apart; to pick clean, strip; to pull away, snatch; to pull down, knock down; to pull off, strip off; to pluck or tear out; to tear apart”), either: * an aphetic form of arasen, aracen (“to pluck, pull, or tear away or out”), from Anglo-Norman aracer and Old French aracier, esracier, esrachier (“to pull off”) (modern French arracher), from Latin ērādīcāre, the present active infinitive of ērādīcō (“to root out; to annihilate, extirpate”), from ē- (variant of ex- (prefix meaning ‘away; out’) + rādīx (“root”) (from Proto-Indo-European *wréh₂ds (“root”)) + -ō (suffix forming regular first-conjugation infinitives of verbs); or * from Anglo-Norman racer, an aphetic form of aracer (see above).

1. To pluck or snatch (something); also, to pull (something).

   “[H]e be-heilde towarde the fier, and saugh the flesshe that the knaue hadde rosted that was tho I-nough, and raced it of with his hondes madly, and rente it a-sonder in peces, and wette it in mylke, and after in the hony, and ete as a wood man that nought ther lefte of the flessh; […]”

   “But nowe a ſtronge man not vſed to ſhoote, at a girde, can heue vp ⁊ plucke in ſunder many a good bowe, as wilde horſes at a brunt doth race and plucke in peeces many a ſtronge carte.”