race

noun · verb

Simple meaning

A contest between people, animals.

Pronunciation

Say it like this:

rays

US device voice

IPA pronunciation (US)

ˈɹeɪs

This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.

IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.

Word Review

Definition

Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.

noun

A contest between people, animals, vehicles, etc. where the goal is to be the first to reach some objective.
Swift progress; rapid motion; an instance of moving or driving at high speed.
A contest of speed
“The race is to the swift.”
electronicscomputing
A race condition; a bug or problem that occurs when two or more components attempt to use the same resource at the same time.
A sequence of events; a progressive movement toward a goal.
A canal for a current of water

verb

Move hurridly
intransitive
To move or drive at high speed; to hurry or speed.
intransitiveof a motor
To run rapidly when not engaged to a transmission.
To assign a race to; to perceive as having a (usually specified) race.
To level or tear down (a building, a town, etc.) to the ground; to demolish.
also figurative
To erase (a record, text, etc.), originally by scraping; to rub out, to scratch out.

Word at a Glance

Difficulty: A1 · Beginner (estimated)
Frequency: Very Common
Typical Use: Everyday English

Word Aura™

How this word commonly comes across.

Aura for this meaning

This meaning: A contest between people, animals, vehicles, etc. where the goal is to be the first to reach some objective.

Used this way, race is a reasonably familiar word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. It usually sounds natural in a wide range of settings.

Emotional tone: Neutral
Formality: Neutral
Intensity: Not strongly marked
How common: Moderately common
Connotation: Matter-of-fact
Usage feel: Neutral and straightforward

Nearby words

hotfoot , rarer, so it draws attention

Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.

More ways to use race

“Some biologists doubt that there are important genetic differences between races of human beings.”noun

Common Patterns and Combinations

How this word naturally appears with others.

Large

human racerace relations

Other combinations

arms racewhole race

Tap the highlighted word to open its own entry.

Word Family

Related forms, grouped by how they connect.

Inflected forms

Grammatical variations of the same word.

racernounInflected form
Someone who drives racing cars at high speeds.

Compound terms

Established multiword terms.

race riotnounCompound term
A riot caused by hatred for one another of members of different races in the same community.
race runnernounCompound term
Very swift lizard of eastern and central United States.
race drivernounCompound term
Someone who drives racing cars at high speeds.
race horsenounCompound term
A horse bred for racing.
race carnounCompound term
A fast car that competes in races.
race meetingnounCompound term
A regular occasion on which a number of horse races are held on the same track.

Related words

Connected by subject or meaning, not by word formation.

racetracknounRelated term
A course over which races are run.
racecoursenounRelated term
A course over which races are run.

Use This Word

See how this word sounds in a real sentence.

Ask Vocabaura

Understand the word your way.

What Does It Mean Here?

Words can change meaning depending on context.

Use it yourself

Knowing “race” starts when you use it. Pick a next step, all free.

Know the meaning? Practice using it in a real situation, free, no credits.

Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.