Raise vs. Rise
Both words mean ‘to move upwards’, but they are not interchangeable. ‘Rise’ is what we call an intransitive verb and ‘raise’ is a transitive verb.
To explain:
Intransitive verbs, like rise, do not require an object. For example:
The sun rises every morning.
She rose from her nap around 2 o’clock.
Transitive verbs, like raise, do require an object. For example:
I raised my hand to answer the question.
He raised the girl up onto his shoulders.
Note also that ‘raise’ is a regular verb: raise, raised, raised, whereas ‘rise’ is an irregular verb: rise, rose, risen.
But really most of the time it’s going to be a lot simpler to just remember which words and phrases go with ‘rise’ and which words and phrases go with ‘raise’. Here are some common uses of each:
Common Uses of Raise
- To elevate: She raised the bar in the competition.
- To lift something: Please raise your hand.
- To set upright by building: They raised the statue in her honor.
- To bring to maturity: She raised him all by herself.
- To increase: He raised his bet by five dollars.
Common Uses of Rise
- To move into an upright position from lying, kneeling or sitting: Please rise for the Lord’s Prayer.
- To move upward without assistance: He likes to rise with the sun.
- To return from death: Michael Jackson rose from the dead in his video “Thriller”.
The correct use of ‘rise’ is particularly important for Business English as it is used to describe movement on a line chart, see:
- Air pollution has risen above an acceptable level.
- Unemployment has risen by 25,000 this month.
- Gas rose in price.
- State benefits will rise in line with inflation.
- Inflation rose from 2% to 5% last year.
Here’s a pdf taken from Merriam-Webster with more usages and examples: raise-rise
You could also try a google search on collocations with rise / collocations with raise.
This post has been adapted from http://robin.hubpages.com/hub/Grammar_Mishaps__Raise_vs_Rise
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