Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun A visible lesion or group of lesions on the skin, caused by any of numerous factors including infectious agents, drugs, and allergies.
  • noun An outbreak of many instances within a brief period.
  • adjective Resulting from or acting with ill-considered haste or boldness. synonym: reckless.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • Quick; sudden; hasty.
  • Hasty in council or action; precipitate; headstrong; impetuous; venturesome: as, a rash statesman or minister; a rash commander.
  • Marked by or manifesting inconsiderate haste in speech or action; resulting from temerity or recklessness: as, rash words; rash measures.
  • Requiring haste; urgent.
  • Synonyms and Enterprising, Foolhardy, etc. (see adventurous), precipitate, hasty, headlong, inconsiderate, careless, heedless. See list under reckless.
  • Quick, brisk, hot; causing too quick a result: as, a rash fire.
  • noun A kind of inferior manufacture of silk or of silk and stuff.
  • noun A crisp rustle; a crackle.
  • noun An obsolete or dialectal form of rush.
  • To put together hurriedly; prepare with haste.
  • To publish imprudently; blab.
  • To cook too rapidly; burn from haste: as, the beef has been rashed in the roasting.
  • noun A more or less extensive eruption on the skin.
  • To tear or slash violently; lacerate; rend; hack; hew; slice.
  • So ripe or dry as to break or fall readily, as corn from dry straw in handling.
  • noun Corn in the straw, so dry as to fall out with handling.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • transitive verb obsolete To pull off or pluck violently.
  • transitive verb obsolete To slash; to hack; to cut; to slice.
  • transitive verb obsolete To prepare with haste.
  • noun (Med.) A fine eruption or efflorescence on the body, with little or no elevation.
  • noun See in the Vocabulary.
  • noun See Urticaria.
  • noun See Roseola.
  • noun See Red-gum.
  • noun obsolete An inferior kind of silk, or mixture of silk and worsted.
  • adjective obsolete Sudden in action; quick; hasty.
  • adjective obsolete Requiring sudden action; pressing; urgent.
  • adjective Esp., overhasty in counsel or action; precipitate; resolving or entering on a project or measure without due deliberation and caution; opposed to prudent; said of persons.
  • adjective Uttered or undertaken with too much haste or too little reflection
  • adjective Prov. Eng. So dry as to fall out of the ear with handling, as corn.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • adjective hasty, not careful or considered.
  • noun medicine An area of reddened, irritated, and inflamed skin.
  • noun A surge in problems; a spate, string or trend
  • verb obsolete To prepare with haste.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • adjective marked by defiant disregard for danger or consequences
  • noun a series of unexpected and unpleasant occurrences
  • noun any red eruption of the skin
  • adjective imprudently incurring risk

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Possibly from obsolete French rache, a sore, from Old French rasche, scurf, from raschier, to scrape, scratch, from Vulgar Latin *rāsicāre, from Latin rāsus, past participle of rādere; see rēd- in Indo-European roots.]

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Middle English rasch, active, unrestrained, perhaps from Old English -raesc (in līgræsc, lightning) or from Middle Dutch or Middle Low German rasch, fast.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Middle English rash, rasch ("hasty, headstrong")

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