Learn how to use the verb "Raise"
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| Hi, everybody. Welcome back to Know Your Verbs. My name is Alisha, and in this lesson, we're going to talk about the verb "raise." Let's get started. |
| Let's start with the basic definition of the verb "raise." The basic definition is to lift something to a higher position. Examples, "Raise your hand. Let's raise the shelf a little higher." Now, let's look at the conjugations of this verb. Present tense, "raise," "raises." Past tense, "raised." Past participle, "raised." Progressive, "raising." |
| Now, let's move on to some additional meanings for this verb. Okay. The first one is to cause an increase in something. So, this doesn't mean necessarily to physically move something up, but rather to cause an increase, like an amount or a number, for example. So, examples of this, "The government is raising taxes next year." "My landlord raised the rent." So, in these cases, we're talking about taxes and rent. "The government raised taxes" means they increased the amount of taxes people have to pay. In the second example sentence, "My landlord raised the rent," means my rent costs were increased. My rent costs went up. They were raised. "My landlord raised the rent." |
| Let's go on to the second additional meaning for this verb. "To cause to exist," like this is used for concepts. Some examples, "This change raises a lot of questions." "Her behavior raised red flags." Okay. So, here, we're seeing concepts, we're seeing ideas. It's not a physical item that comes into existence, it's a concept. In the first example sentence, "This change raises a lot of questions." It means from this change, a lot of questions come into existence. So, some change happened, and now I have lots of different questions. We use the verb "raised" to mean came into existence, like something conceptually came into existence. |
| In the second example sentence, "Her behavior raises red flags." I've used the expression "red flags" here. So, "red flags" means a hint or some kind of indicator of something negative, a negative quality about that person. This is a sentence that has a negative feeling about it, but I've used the verb "raised." So, the sentence is, "Her behavior raised red flags," which means her behavior caused me to think that there was something negative about her. So, her behavior was maybe strange or dangerous, and so I thought maybe this person, there's something not quite right about this person. There were red flags. So, I used the verb "raised" to say that her behavior introduced that, her behavior caused those red flags to exist. |
| Okay. Let's move on to the third one. The third one is "to take care of someone or something." Examples, "My parents decided to raise chickens." "Where were you raised?" So, in these sentences, we see someone taking care of something else. The first sentence, "My parents decided to raise chickens," means to take care of, like from when they're babies until they're full-grown adults, my parents decided to raise chickens. So, as they grow up, they are being taken care of. |
| In the second example, it's a question. "Where were you raised?" A passive question. "Where were you raised?" means where were you taken care of until you grew up, essentially is the meaning. But we use "raised" to communicate that. "Where were you raised?" "I was raised on the West Coast California." Where were you raised? |
| Female: Massachusetts. |
| Massachusetts, alright. So, this verb is used for parenting for sure. When you're talking about where you grew up, you can say, "I grew up in," or, "I was raised in." Parents can use this. "I want to raise my kids in," place, or, "in," environment. Just be careful, we don't use the word "grow" for people. We can use it for plants, like, "I like to grow plants" is fine. We can't say, "I want to grow my kids." Doesn't work. We can't use that, "raise" instead. |
| The fourth one is to increase another person's bet. This is a very specific use of the word "raise." We use this in gambling, like at casinos, for example. Examples, "I'll raise you $20." "She raised him $3,000." So, this means there's an existing bet. In the first example, "I'll raise you $20." There's a bet that exists somewhere. Let's say, for example, the bet is $10 that my opponent played. I, however, want to increase the risk in the game. I say, "I'll raise you $20," which means from this original $10, I'm going to add $20. That means the total bet is now $30. If the other person still wants to play the game, they now have to put in $20 more to match my bet. So, "to raise" means to add additional risk to a bet. In the second example sentence, we see the same thing, "She raised him $3,000." There's an existing bet. She increased the amount of the bet by $3,000. So, this is a very specific use of "raise," but if you like card games or casinos or gambling, it could be useful for you. |
| Okay. Let's talk about the next additional meaning of the verb "raise." It means to collect money, to gather money, to get money from different sources. Examples of this, "Let's raise money in a fundraiser." "How are we going to raise money for this project?" so, in these examples, we're talking about money. This is very commonly used to talk about money. We tend to use this expression, this use of "raise" is used to talk about money, like financial resources that we need for some project or some charity or some volunteer activity. So, we say, "Let's raise money," or, "Let's raise funds to support this group," for example. So, this can be used to talk about gathering funds, gathering money. |
| Okay. The variations. Let's talk about some variations of this verb. The first one is "to raise eyebrows." The image of this is literally your eyebrows go up. Why? Because we're experiencing mild suspicion or surprise. When you hear something and you have this like, "Mm-hmm?" reaction to, it's like, "What?" That's the raising eyebrows expression. Examples of this, "Her weekend plans raised some eyebrows at the office." "If you confront management, you might raise some eyebrows." That means if you do that thing, in the first example sentence, "Her weekend plans raised some eyebrows at the office." It means something about her plans for the weekend caused suspicion or maybe surprise among the other people in the office. |
| In the second example sentence, "If you confront management, you might raise some eyebrows." It means if you do this thing, if you talk to management, they might be surprised, or they might be suspicious of you. So, "raise eyebrows" means to be suspicious or to be a little bit surprised of something. |
| The next variation is "to raise the bar." This expression means like to set a higher standard than previously or to determine a higher standard than was previously set. Examples, "We need to raise the bar for our work." "They've raised the bar at that restaurant." In the first example, "We need to raise the bar for our work." It means we need to set a higher standard for our work. It's quite long to say, but we say, "Raise the bar." You can actually imagine this in terms of sports, like if you've seen gymnastics, when there's--we can imagine the pole vault, for example. If the bar to jump over, the athlete to jump over is at this level, maybe it's easy, but if we raise the bar, it becomes more difficult and requires more skill to do that same task. So, when we say, "We need to raise the bar for our work," or, "That restaurant has raised the bar," it means their standards have improved or maybe their skills have improved as well. It's a positive thing. |
| Alright. The last one, the last variation is "to raise hell." This means like to behave in a way that can cause other people trouble. It often means like to be loud or to be drinking, to be noisy, to be like out in society causing disruptions. Often, young people are known for raising hell. Examples, "A bunch of college kids are raising hell at the beach." "Let's raise hell." These are examples of kids--usually, kids are like young people that are just kind of out to cause trouble. Usually, it's because they're having a good time and they're trying to do it too noisily or they're just having too much fun and causing problems in their community. But sometimes people actually plan to go out and cause problems for others. So, to describe that activity, we can say, "Raise hell, to raise hell." |
| Alright. So, I hope that you found a few new ways to use the verb "raise." Of course, if you have any questions or comments, or if you want to try to make a sentence, please feel free to do so in the comments section of this video. Thanks very much for watching this episode of Know Your Verbs and we'll see you again soon. Bye-bye. |
| Alright, that's a recap. It's not a recap. I'm tired, gosh. Okay. That's an overview of a few different uses of the verb "raise." Oh, my God, I'm out of it today. Okay! |
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