“The sun raised this morning” — you know it’s wrong, but your tongue wrote it anyway. Rise and raise are one of English’s classic transitive/intransitive twins, and the irregular past tenses keep the trap set: rose and risen look nothing like raise, yet raised sounds almost identical. Here’s the rule, plus the exceptions the dictionaries actually list.
Rise vs Raise: The Short Answer
The standard rule: rise is intransitive — it takes no object — while raise is transitive — it takes an object. And the forms differ: rise is irregular (rise, rose, risen); raise is regular (raise, raised, raised). “Prices rose” (no object) versus “They raised prices” (object). That covers nearly every sentence you’ll ever write — with two small exceptions, noted honestly below.
What Does “Rise” Mean?
Merriam-Webster defines rise as an intransitive verb — sense 7a: “to move upward: ascend.” Nothing follows it. The sun rises. The dough rises. He rose from his chair and left. The actor rises by doing the rising; there is no object being acted upon.
Its forms are irregular: rise, rose, risen. “Prices rose last quarter.” “The water has risen three inches.” Random House calls it “almost exclusively intransitive in its standard uses” — but in edited English the rule is effectively absolute: if an object follows, the verb is wrong.
What Does “Raise” Mean?
Merriam-Webster defines raise as a transitive verb — “almost always used transitively,” per the Random House usage note. Sense 3b: “to lift up — raise your hand.” Sense 5b: “to bring to maturity: rear — raise a child.” Its forms are regular: raise, raised, raised. “They raised the flag.” “She raised three children.” “Raise your hand if you agree.”
Because raise takes an object, it’s the doing-to-something verb: you raise prices, raise a barn, raise a question, raise the stakes. And Merriam-Webster records a specialized transitive sense familiar to poker players: “to increase a bet or bid” — you raise the bet, never rise it.
The honest footnote: Merriam-Webster lists one intransitive sense of raise — “1 dialect: rise.” In some regional speech, “the price raised” occurs, but it’s not standard and won’t survive an editor’s pen.
Why Do the Past Tenses Trip Everyone Up?
The trap is phonetic and morphological at once. Rise, rose, risen is irregular — the vowels shift. Raise, raised, raised is regular — the endings stack. So in the past tense, the two verbs live dangerously close together: rose versus raised, risen versus raised. A sentence like “He has raised early” feels almost right until you check it: no object, so it must be “He has risen early.” Conversely, “The committee has risen the issue” fails the other way — an object is present, so the verb must be raise: “The committee has raised the issue.”
The salary nouns add a second layer: an American says “I got a raise,” a Brit “I got a rise” — both standard in their varieties.
The fix for all of this is the object test: find the verb, ask “verb what?” If there’s an answer — raise prices, raise a child, raise your hand — you want raise. If there’s no answer — the sun, the dough, the river — you want rise.
How to Use Them in a Sentence
- “The sun rises at six.” (no object — intransitive)
- “Prices have risen again this year.” (rise, rose, risen)
- “They raised the flag at dawn.” (object present — transitive)
- “She raises prize-winning orchids.” (raise, raised, raised)
- “He got a raise in April.” (American English) / “She got a rise in April.” (British English)
This is the same transitive/intransitive family as lay vs lie — master this pair and that one gets easier. And for another direction-sensitive pair, see bring vs take.
Common Mistakes
First, the classic: putting an object after rise. “The company rose prices” is wrong in standard English; “The company raised prices.” Run the object test every time — if you can ask “raised what?” and get an answer, it’s raise.
Second, mixing risen and raised in perfect tenses. “She has raised her hand” is correct (object present, transitive). “He has risen early” is correct (no object, intransitive). “He has raised early” is not.
Third, “rise your hand.” With an object (your hand), the verb is raise: “Raise your hand.” Rise can never take an object in standard use, so “rise your hand” fails on arrival.
And finally, don’t “correct” the salary noun across the Atlantic: “a raise” is American standard, “a rise” British standard.
Frequently Asked Questions
Transitivity. Rise is (almost exclusively) intransitive — it takes no object: “the sun rises.” Raise is (almost always) transitive — it takes an object: “raise your hand.” The forms differ too: rise, rose, risen versus raise, raised, raised.
Rise is irregular: rise, rose, risen (“Prices rose”). Raise is regular: raise, raised, raised (“They raised the flag”). The past participle raised is never correct for rise, and risen is never correct for raise.
No, not in standard English. Prices don’t take an object — they rise: “the prices rose.” If you want raise, you need a subject doing the raising: “the store raised prices.”
Merriam-Webster records one intransitive sense, labeled “1 dialect: rise” — it exists in regional speech but is not standard. In edited writing, treat raise as transitive and use rise when there’s no object.
Both — it depends on your variety of English. The Random House usage note states: in American English a person receives a raise in salary; in British English, a rise. Neither is more correct than the other.
Very little. Merriam-Webster defines raise at sense 5b as “to bring to maturity: rear” — the dictionary itself gives rear as the synonym, so “raise a child” and “rear a child” both work in standard English.
