To raise means to lift something up or make it higher. You might raise your hand in class to answer a question, or a flagpole raises the flag each morning. When a baker lets bread dough rise, we also say it raises.

The word also means to bring up children or animals. Parents raise their kids by caring for them, teaching them, and helping them grow into adults. A farmer raises cattle or chickens. Someone who was raised in Alaska grew up there.

Raise can mean to increase something. A store might raise its prices. Your teacher might raise the difficulty of assignments as you get better at the subject. When you raise the stakes in a game or challenge, you make winning or losing matter more.

You can also raise a topic by bringing it up for discussion, or raise money by collecting it for a cause. When something raises questions, it makes people wonder or think more deeply.

As a noun, a raise is an increase in how much someone gets paid. If your mom gets a raise at work, she'll earn more money for doing the same job.

The key idea connecting these meanings is moving something upward or forward: lifting things higher, helping people grow, increasing amounts, or bringing ideas to attention.