[people of common descent] 1560s, "people descended from a common ancestor, class of persons allied by common ancestry," from French race, earlier razza "race, breed, lineage, family" (16c.), possibly from Italian razza, which is of unknown origin (cognate with Spanish raza, Portuguese raça). Etymologists say it has no connection with Latin radix "root," though they admit this might have influenced the "tribe, nation" sense, and race was a 15c. form of radix in Middle English (via Old French räiz, räis). Klein suggests the words derive from Arabic ra's "head, beginning, origin" (compare Hebrew rosh).
Original senses in English included "wines with characteristic flavor" (1520), "group of people with common occupation" (c. 1500), and "generation" (1540s). The meaning developed via the sense of "tribe, nation, or people regarded as of common stock" to "an ethnical stock, one of the great divisions of mankind having in common certain physical peculiarities" by 1774 (though as OED points out, even among anthropologists there never has been an accepted classification of these). In 19c. also "a group regarded as forming a distinctive ethnic stock" (German, Greeks, etc.).
Just being a Negro doesn't qualify you to understand the race situation any more than being sick makes you an expert on medicine. [Dick Gregory, 1964]
In mid-20c. U.S. music catalogues, it means "Negro." Old English þeode meant both "race, folk, nation" and "language;" as a verb, geþeodan meant "to unite, to join." Race-consciousness "social consciousness," whether in reference to the human race or one of the larger ethnic divisions, is attested by 1873; race-relations is attested by 1897. Race theory "assertion that some racial groups are endowed with qualities deemed superior" is by 1894.
[strong current of water] c. 1300, more or less a particular sense of race (n.1), which then denoted any forward movement or swift running, from Old Norse ras in its sense of "a rushing of water." Via Norman French the word entered French as ras, which might have given English race its specialized meaning of "channel of a stream" (especially an artificial one, to a mill, etc.), which is recorded in English from 1560s.
"pertaining to or derived from grapes," 1835, from French racémique, from Latin racemus "cluster of grapes" (see raisin). Related: Racemism; racemation.
1785, in reference to a type of flower cluster, from Latin racemus "a cluster of grapes" (see raisin). In Middle English, "a raisin or currant" (late 14c.).
"one who or that which races," 1640s of persons, 1660s of horses, 1793 of vehicles, by 1809 in American English in reference to a type of snake; agent nouns from race (v.).
WHEN a lad, I lived with my father in the then province of New Jersey, where the black snake, with a white throat, commonly called the racer, as well as the rattle snake, and other serpents, are frequently met with ; and I never remember to have heard any one dispute the power of charming belonging to several species of serpents, but more common to the black snake, called the racer, which I have twice seen in the operation. ["Extract from a letter from Samuel Beach, dated Whiting, July 24, 1795," in appendix to Samuel Williams, "The Natural and Civil History of Vermont," 2nd ed., 1809]
