raid

To engage in a raid against.

Noun

  1. A quick hostile or predatory incursion or invasion in a battle.
    • Marauding chief! his sole delight / The moonlight raid, the morning fight. - 1805, Walter Scott, “Canto Fourth”, in The Lay of the Last Minstrel: A Poem, London: […] [James Ballantyne] for Longman, Hurst, Rees, and...
    • There are permanent conquests, temporary occupation, and occasional raids. - 1872, Herbert Spencer, The Principles of Biology, volume 1, page 315:

    Synonyms: attack foray incursion

  2. An attack or invasion for the purpose of making arrests, seizing property, or plundering.
    • a police raid of a narcotics factory
    • a raid of contractors on the public treasury
    • For Lothian and Borders Police, the early-morning raid had come at the end one of biggest investigations carried out by the force, which had originally presented a dossier of evidence on the murder of Jodi Jones to the...

    Synonyms: irruption

  3. An attacking movement.
    • The athletic Walker, one of Tottenham's more effective attacking elements with his raids from right-back, made a timely intervention after Rose had been dispossessed and even Aaron Lennon was needed to provide an...
  4. An activity initiated at or towards the end of a live broadcast by the broadcaster that sends its viewers to a different broadcast, primarily intended to boost the viewership of the receiving broadcaster. This is frequently accompanied by a message in the form of a hashtag that is posted in the broadcast's chat by the viewers.
    • Now that Twitch is making raids an official part of the platform, however, some streamers think the new feature will make it easier to participate in the positive aspects of raiding. - 2017 November 3, Ethan Gach, “What...
    • Now streamers can use a new feature that lets their viewers join a raid then drive traffic to another streamer with just a click. - 2017 October 20, Sarah Perez, “Twitch unveils a suite of new tools to help creators...
  5. A large group in a massively multiplayer online game, consisting of multiple parties who team up to defeat a powerful enemy.
  6. An event involving a group of users, often using bots and scripts, who join a server to harm it or harass its members.
    • I used the tools discord gave me to prevent raids but he somehow knows a bypass, I use bots and they do help prevent it but just having him ping 90 guys once makes people bash me for an entire hour. - 2022 January 28,...
    • Raids are a problem on Guilded. I have been in many servers that have been raided by a user with an account gen or even just some users looking to cause trouble and ruin the communities for us [...] - 2022 March 7,...

Origin

From Scots raid, from Northern Middle English rade, from Old English rād (“a riding, an expedition on horseback, road”), whence also the inherited English road (“way, street”). The earlier senses of “a riding, expedition, raid” fell into disuse in Early Modern English, but were revived in the northern form raid by Walter Scott in the early 19th century. The use for a swift police operation appears in the later 19th century and may perhaps have been influenced by French razzia (similar in both original meaning and sound).

Forms

raids rade

Derived

air raid air-raid Baedeker raid bear raid corporate raid counterraid dawn raid panty raid raidproof ram raid ram-raid Zoom raid

Verb

  1. To engage in a raid against.
    • The police raided the gambling den.
    • The soldiers raided the village and burned it down.
    • A group of mobsters raided an art museum and stole a bunch of paintings.
  2. To lure from another; to entice away from.
  3. To indulge oneself by taking from.
    • I raided the fridge for snacks.

Forms

raids raiding raided rade

Derived

caught raiding the cookie jar counterraid raidable raider ramraid unraided