Translation
breed, stock (of an animal); race
Word origin
From French race and Italian razza, a lineage or stock, first recorded in Italian in the fifteenth century. The older account traced it to Latin ratio ('reckoning, kind'); the fuller modern account favours Old French haraz, a stud farm, which fits the breeding sense the word first carried.
- Origin
- French and Italian
- Root
- razza
- English cognates
- race, racial
Other proposed origins
- Traditionally derived from Latin ratio in the sense of kind or category, by way of an unattested Italian razza. (Latin, ratio)
- More recent scholarship points to Old French haraz, a stud farm or herd of breeding horses, which explains why the earliest uses are about animal stock. (Old French, haraz)
Examples
.
That dog belongs to an old breed.
.
He has two horses of the same breed.
, ?
Which breed do you prefer, a large or a small dog?
In practice is a stockbreeder's word: a of dogs, of horses, of cattle, the equivalent of English breed rather than of species, which is . It is also the ordinary Esperanto word for race in the human sense, and you will meet it that way in older texts, in the movement's own nineteenth-century writing and in fixed compounds such as . Modern usage has largely moved on: where the point is a human group, etno or is the usual choice now, and reads as dated or as a technical term. Keep it apart from , to shave, which is a different root entirely.
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raso: worksheet, infographic and listicle
Free printable study downloads for the Esperanto word "raso" (breed, stock (of an animal); race): a worksheet with the answer key built in, an infographic, and a sentence listicle. Open any one to view, print or save.
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Start your free weekThis word is part of lesson 34.