Definition of "race"
race1
noun
countable and uncountable, plural races
A contest between people, animals, vehicles, etc. where the goal is to be the first to reach some objective.
Quotations
I returned, and saw vnder the Sunne, That the race is not to the swift, nor the battell to the strong, neither yet bread to the wise, nor yet riches to men of vnderstanding, nor yet fauour to men of skil; but time and chance happeneth to them all.
1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], Ecclesiastes 9:11
After days of intensifying pressure from runners, politicians and the general public to call off the New York City Marathon in the wake of Hurricane Sandy, city officials and the event’s organizers decided Friday afternoon to cancel the race.
2012 November 2, Ken Belson, “After Days of Pressure, Marathon Is Off”, in The New York Times
Swift progress; rapid motion; an instance of moving or driving at high speed.
Quotations
The flight of many birds is swifter than the race of any beasts.
1631, Francis [Bacon], “VII. Century. [Experiments Solitary touching the Quicknesse of Motion in Birds.]”, in Sylua Syluarum: Or A Naturall Historie. In Ten Centuries. […], 3rd edition, London: […] William Rawley; [p]rinted by J[ohn] H[aviland] for William Lee […], page 166
And above all, it is an age of activity and enterprise, an age of new discoveries and new deviltries, an age of magnetic telegraphs and Mississippi bonds, and it would be indeed odd if, in the swift race of progress, the rogue did not keep his natural station in the van of the movement.
1847 December, “The Literature of Humbug”, in The Young American's Magazine, volume 1, page 318
(electronics, computing) A race condition; a bug or problem that occurs when two or more components attempt to use the same resource at the same time.
Quotations
Many problems of oscillations and races are solved by this arrangement.
1989, R. Raghuram, Computer Simulation of Electronic Circuits, New Delhi: Wiley Eastern, page 181
Because a race by definition depends on the timing being just wrong, you could test your program any number of times, never observe any misbehavior, and still have a user run into the problem.¶ This occurrence is not just a theoretical possibility: Real programs have race bugs and real users have encountered them, sometimes with consequences that have literally been fatal.
1999, Max Hailperin, Barbara Kaiser, Karl Knight, “Java, Applets, and Concurrency”, in Concrete Abstractions, Brooks/Cole Publishing, page 622
A sequence of events; a progressive movement toward a goal.
Quotations
An offensive war is made, which is unjust in the aggressor; the prosecution and race of the war carrieth the defendant to invade the ancient patrimony of the first aggressor, who is now turned defendant; shall he sit down, and not put himself in defence?
1624, Francis Bacon, “Considerations Touching a War with Spain”, in Basil Montagu, editor, The Works of Francis Bacon, volume 5, William Pickering, published 1826, page 240
A fast-moving current of water.
Quotations
The existing analysis and program for the propeller-rudder interaction has been updated incorporating all the improvements concerned with the propeller loading distribution, including that associated with the fact that the rudder is immersed in the race of the propeller.
1980, Pauline H. Gurewitz, Hydraulic Research in the United States and Canada, 1978, page 120
This is an area of spectacular tidal races, rips, swirls, boils, whirlpools, overfalls, currents, and countercurrents. Scylla and Charybdis pale by comparison with the great maelstroms where the sea is trapped between Vancouver Island and the Canadian mainland.
2003 December, Jonathan Raban, “Julia and the Whirlpools”, in Cruising World, volume 29, number 12, page 40
A water channel, especially one built to lead water to or from a point where it is utilised, such as that which powers a millwheel.
Quotations
Evidently the future manufacturing development depends upon the hydraulic canal, so far as existing works are concerned, rather than upon the two races, which can never be enlarged to embrace a comprehensive improvement of the river, while the capabilities at th hydraulic basin are unrivaled. So far as can be learned there is no expectation of ever increasing materially the capacity of the races.
1885, James Leal Greenleaf, “Report on the Water-Powers of the Drainage Basins of Lakes Huron and Erie, in the United States”, in Reports on the Water-Power of the United States, Washington: Department of the Interior, part 1, pages 504–505
Any miners intending to divert and use water for mining or general purposes, or to cut a race or construct dams or reservoirs in connection therewith, shall give notice in writing thereof to the Warden […]
1888, “Water Rights”, in Gold Mining Regulations, 1888, Parliament of South Australia, section 48, page 4
Water for irrigation is stored in the high country behind the Upper Manorburn Dam. Two parallel races at different levels run along the west side of the valley and one race flowing along the east side is supplemented by water stored at the Poolburn Dam.
1957 December 16, A. H. Mouat, R. C. Stuart, G. Mason, “Farming in Ida Valley, Central Otago”, in The New Zealand Journal of Agriculture, volume 95, number 6, page 587
A path that something or someone moves along.
Quotations
There were all the marked passages, which had thrilled his soul so often,—words of patriarchs and seers, poets and sages, who from early time had spoken courage to man,—voices from the great cloud of witnesses who ever surround us in the race of life.
1852, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Uncle Tom's Cabin, volume 2, Boston: John P. Jewett & Company, page 242
A guide or channel that a component of a machine moves along:
(sewing, weaving) A groove on a sewing machine or a loom along which the shuttle moves.
Quotations
Meanwhile another lug on the shuttle-band engages another carrier at the other end of the loom, and the belt, continuing to move in the same direction, conveys the carrier across the race in a similar manner as above described.
1872 November 29, “Improved Loom for Weaving Fabrics of Any Width”, in The English Mechanic and Word of Science, volume 16, number 401, page 259
(engineering) A ring with a groove in which rolling elements (such as balls) ride, forming part of a rolling-element bearing (for example, a ball bearing).
Quotations
These bearings do not employ a loading groove or filling slot but utilize an uninterrupted race groove containing the maximum number of balls that can be introduced by eccentric displacement of the races. Due to the relatively large size of the balls and the fact that the ball curvature is only slightly less than the race curvature, the bearings have comparatively high load carrying capacity in both axial and radial directions.
1965 August 15, Maintenance of Aeronautical Antifriction Bearings, NAVWEPS 01-1A-503, United States Bureau of Naval Weapons, section 2, page 5
The bearing comprises four mechanical components: an outer race, an inner race, rollers (balls), and a cage that holds the rollers (balls) in place.
2017, Tian Ran Lin, Kun Yu, Jiwen Tan, “Condition Monitoring and Fault Diagnosis of Roller Element Bearing”, in Pranav H. Darji, editor, Bearing Technology, Rijeka, Croatia: InTech, page 40
(gambling) A keno gambling session.
Quotations
Your odds are sometimes significantly better with video keno […] But because video keno plays so much faster, you're likely to lose more money over a given period. Live keno races start every 10 minutes, but you can make 100 bets on a video version in the same amount of time.
2022, Kevin Blackwood, Swain Scheps, “Striking the Mother Lode: Keno and Bingo”, in Casino Gambling For Dummies, 2nd edition, John Wiley & Sons
verb
third-person singular simple present races, present participle racing, simple past and past participle raced
(intransitive) To take part in a race (in the sense of a contest).
Quotations
Honesty raced up six lengths in front of Wandering Minstrel, turned, then raced past for the second, and lost his place at the hedge; some work followed to the plantation, but Honesty was always the faster in the racing stretches, and won easily.
1875, “Lichfield Open Meeting”, in John Henry Walsh, editor, Coursing Calendar for the Autumn Season 1874, page 187
(transitive) To compete against in a race (contest).
Quotations
He pulled it down and saw Tech's full-back closing in. Counting on his own fresh condition, Jimmy raced him toward the sidelines, and got around him just in time to prevent being forced out. The goal was waiting for him twenty yards away, and to the accompaniment of a deafening shout from the stands he placed the pigskin across the goal line.
1928 November, Paschal N. Strong, “Signals”, in Boys' Life, volume 18, number 11, page 61
(intransitive) To move or drive at high speed; to hurry or speed.
Quotations
Across Japan, technology companies and private investors are racing to install devices that until recently they had little interest in: solar panels. Massive solar parks are popping up as part of a rapid build-up that one developer likened to an "explosion."
2013 June 21, Chico Harlan, “Japan pockets the subsidy …”, in The Guardian Weekly, volume 189, number 2, page 30
race2
noun
countable and uncountable, plural races
A group of sentient beings, particularly people, distinguished by common ancestry, heritage or characteristics (see Wikipedia's article on historical definitions of race):
A large group of people distinguished from others on the basis of common physical characteristics, such as skin color or hair type.
Quotations
The race to which most anthropologists refer the native Americans is the Mongoloid of Eastern Asia, who are capable of accommodating themselves to the extremest climates, and who by the form of skull, the light brown skin, straight black hair, and black eyes, show considerable agreement with the American tribes.
1881 July, Edward Burnett Tylor, “The Races of Mankind”, in Popular Science Monthly, volume 19, page 309
Colonel Lin Nan: Would it offend you to be loved by a man of another race?Gladys Aylward: It would honor me.
1958, Burgess, Alan, Lennart, Isobel, 1:41:15 from the start, in The Inn of the Sixth Happiness, spoken by Curd Jürgens as Colonel Lin Nan and Ingrid Bergman as Gladys Aylward, 20th Century Fox
Few concepts are as emotionally charged as that of race. The word conjures up a mixture of associations—culture, ethnicity, genetics, subjugation, exclusion and persecution. But is the tragic history of efforts to define groups of people by race really a matter of the misuse of science, the abuse of a valid biological concept?
2012 March-April, Jan Sapp, “Race Finished”, in American Scientist, volume 100, number 2, page 164
A large group of people distinguished from others on the basis of shared characteristics or qualities, for example social qualities.
Quotations
His opinion is founded on the alleged fact that there are scarely any drunkards in the wine-producing regions, where people drink wine with their food as freely as we do tea or coffee. "Give us what good wine we need," says the professor, "and the temperance crusade will be wellnigh ended when the present race of drunkards have passed away.
1872 October 5, Prof. G[eorge] C[linton] Swallow, quotee, “Table-Talk”, in Appletons' Journal, volume 8, number 184, page 386
Indeed, all of us are called to join the race of faith. Our identity as Christians is not a burden or an obstacle for our lives, but is rather a gift, […]
2009, Eunjoo M. Kim, edited by David L. Bartlett and Barbara Brown Taylor, Feasting on the Word: Preaching the Revised Common Lectionary, Year C, page 249
A group of organisms distinguished by common characteristics; often an informal infraspecific rank in taxonomy, below species:
(biology) A population geographically separated from others of its species that develops significantly different characteristics; a mating group.
Quotations
Two races are certainly valid. The Atlantic race (P. v. vitulina) is distinguishable from the Pacific race (P. v. richardi Gray, 1864) by skull characters.
1968 December, Dale W. Rice, Victor B. Scheffer, A List of the Marine Mammals of the World, Special Scientific Report—Fisheries number 579, United States Fish and Wildlife Service, Phoca vitulina, page 6
A population that differs signicatly from other populations belonging to the same species is referred to as a geographic race or subspecies. Subspecies are separated from other subspecies by distance and geographic barriers that prevent the exchange of individuals, as opposed to the genetically based "intrinsic isolating mechanisms" that hold species apart.
2000, Edward O[sborne] Wilson, Sociobiology: The New Synthesis, 25th anniversary edition, Harvard University Press, page 9
(botany) A strain of plant with characteristics causing it to differ from other plants of the same species.
Quotations
Nevertheless, as our varieties certainly do occasionally revert in some of their characters to ancestral forms, it seems to me not improbable, that if we could succeed in naturalising, or were to cultivate, during many generations, the several races, for instance, of the cabbage, in very poor soil (in which case, however, some effect would have to be attributed to the direct action of the poor soil), that they would to a large extent, or even wholly, revert to the wild aboriginal stock.
1859, Charles Darwin, “Variation under Domestication”, in On the Origin of Species
Tree races develop not only in different latitudes, but also at different altitudes and within mountainous regions. Since climate changes markedly with altitude as well as latitude, both kinds of development are included in the term climatic races. In addition, soil or site races may develop in areas similar climatically but characterized by different soil or site conditions.
1948 June, “Development of Races”, in Woody-Plant Seed Manual, Miscellaneous Publication no. 654, Washington, D.C.: United States Department of Agriculture, page 15
Our genetic evaluation suggests that the morphologically distinct race (Dolores River) is more closely related to the type materials than the ecologically distinct, high-elevation race.
1995 September 11–14, Loreen Allphin, Michael D[ennis] Windham, Kimball T[aylor] Harper, “A Genetic Evaluation of Three Potential Races of the Rare Kachina Daisy”, in Southwestern Rare and Endangered Plants: Proceedings of the Second Conference, Flagstaff, Arizona, page 75
(mycology, bacteriology) A strain of microorganism, fungi, etc.
Quotations
Now Mary MacDonald of the Plant Breeding Institute at Maris Lane, Cambridge, has made an interesting study which has duplicated the conditions under which new races arise. And she has produced at least one new fungal race.
1977 March 24, “Why is cereal fungus so resistant?”, in New Scientist, volume 73, number 1044, page 697
The type of microorganisms is a very important factor influencing the quality of cider. Yeast of various producers and races result in different taste and flavor.
2018 December, Anna Kolobaeva, Olga Kotik, “Technological Approaches to Cider Quality”, in Advances in Engineering Research, volume 151, Atlantis Press
(obsolete) Peculiar flavour, taste, or strength, as of wine; that quality, or assemblage of qualities, which indicates origin or kind, as in wine; hence, characteristic flavour.
Quotations
On the day following Elizabeth's interview with Gideon, this innocent relish—the olives which gave zest, or the walnuts which gave race and richness, to Monkshaugh's moderate hebdomadal glass of old claret—was not forgotten.
1827, Christian Isobel Johnstone, “A Country Sunday Evening”, in Elizabeth de Bruce, volume 1, New York: W. Blackwood, page 130
So sang the poet in his pride of place, / And Arthur bade the pages plenish well / The cups of all the kings with wine of race, / Osaye or Algarde, Rhenish or Rochell, / Vernage of Venice, Rhodes or Famagust, / Sweet Malvoisie or Cretan Muscadel,—
1875, Sebastian Evans, “The Eve of Morte Arthur”, in In the Studio, London: Macmillan & Co, pages 164–165
(obsolete) Characteristic quality or disposition.
Quotations
His conversation, too, had a race and flavour peculiarly its own: it was nervous, sententious, and tinctured with genuine wit.
1807, Alexander Fraser Tytler, Lord Woodhouselee, Memoirs of the Life and Writings of the Honourable Henry Home of Kames, volume 1, book 2, chapter 1, Edinburgh: William Creech, page 181
(obsolete) The sexual activity of conceiving and bearing biological offspring.
Quotations
It behooveth therefore that the Mares appointed for race, be well compacted, of a decent quality, being fair and beautiful to look upon, the belly and loins being great, in age not under three nor above ten years old.
1658, Edward Topsell, “Of the horse”, in The History of Four-Footed Beasts and Serpents, page 234
(archaic, uncountable) Ancestry.
Quotations
Wars of religion, more sanguinary, cruel, and ruinous than even those of Henry the fifth and Edward the third, rise in succession under the three last princes of the race of Valois.
1785, Nathaniel William Wraxall, “Henry the Second”, in The History of France Under the Kings of the Race of Valois, 2nd edition, volume 2, London: C. Dilly, pages 52–53
That very estate which the Lyndons now possess in Ireland was once the property of my race.
1844 January–December, W[illiam] M[akepeace] Thackeray, “My Pedigree and Family.—Undergo the Influence of the Tender Passion.”, in “The Memoirs of Barry Lyndon, Esq. [The Luck of Barry Lyndon.]”, in Miscellanies: Prose and Verse, volume III, London: Bradbury and Evans, […], published 1856
(obsolete) A step in a lineage or succession; a generation.
Quotations
For the old stock is fast dying out, Jennie, / And a young race is taking their place, / In our grandmothers' day they had sense, Jennie, / No powder or paints on their face.
1929 December, Johnny Burke, “No Short Skirts To Their Knees”, in Burke's Popular Songs, St. John's, Newfoundland: Long Brothers
(obsolete, uncountable) Progeny, offspring, descendants.
Quotations
The good man besought him. Let the king / Propitious hear a parent. In thy train / I have five sons. Ah! leave my eldest born, / Thy future vassal, to sustain my age!' / The tyrant fell reply'd. 'Presumptuous man, / Who art my slave, in this tremendous war, / Is not my person hazarded, my race, / My consort?[']
1737, Richard Glover, Leonidas, book 2, Baltimore: Neal, Wills & Cole, published 1814, page 35
There the passions cramp’d no longer shall have scope and breathing-space; / I will take some savage woman, she shall rear my dusky race. / Iron-jointed, supple-sinew’d, they shall dive, and they shall run, / Catch the wild goat by the hair, and hurl their lances in the sun[.]
1842, Alfred, Lord Tennyson, “Locksley Hall”, in Poems, volume 2, London: Edward Moxon, page 109
verb
third-person singular simple present races, present participle racing, simple past and past participle raced
To assign a race to; to perceive as having a (usually specified) race.
Quotations
To be raced as black in the U.S. translates symbolically into being considered inferior to whites, lazy, immoral, boisterous, violent, and sexually promiscuous.
1996, Philosophical Studies in Education, page 151
From this perspective, the project of progressive blackness entails the edification of black people and the elimination of all forms of domination that limit this edification for all those raced as black.
2006, Athena D. Mutua, Progressive Black Masculinities?, Routledge, page 30
By avoiding being raced as white, whites are able to maintain the illusion that they have always been individuals, that they have always accomplished their achievements through merit alone.
2008, George Yancy, Black Bodies, White Gazes: The Continuing Significance of Race, Rowman & Littlefield, page 46
(obsolete) To pass down certain phenotypic traits to offspring.
Quotations
D'Hervieux obſerves that it is uſual to put the female canary bird to the male goldfinch, linnet, or the like, to breed; but for his part, he ſhould chuſe to put the male canary-bird to the female goldfinch, linnet, &c. becauſe the male uſually races more than the female, i. e. the young ones take more after the male than after the female.
1738 , Ephraim Chambers, “Race”, in Cyclopaedia: Or, An Universal Dictionary Of Arts and Sciences, 2nd edition, London: D. Midwinter
race3
noun
plural races
A rhizome or root, especially of ginger.
Quotations
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.
1777, Edward Terry, A Voyage to East-India, page 62
race4
verb
third-person singular simple present races, present participle racing, simple past and past participle raced
Quotations
[…] and after he 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; […]
c. 1450, chapter 23, in Henry Benjamin Wheatley, editor, Merlin or the Early History of King Arthur, volume 2, Early English Text Society, published 1899, page 424