Definitions
from The Century Dictionary.
- noun A ship of war cut down to a smaller size by reducing the number of decks.
- To cut down or reduce to a lower class, as a ship; hence, to lessen or abridge by cutting out parts: as, to
razee a book or an article.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- noun (Naut.) An armed ship having her upper deck cut away, and thus reduced to the next inferior rate, as a seventy-four cut down to a frigate.
- transitive verb To cut down to a less number of decks, and thus to an inferior rate or class, as a ship; hence, to prune or abridge by cutting off or retrenching parts.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun nautical An
armed ship with itsupper deck cut away, and thus reduced to the next inferior rate, such as aseventy-four cut down to afrigate . - verb nautical To cut (a ship) down to a smaller number of decks, and thus to an inferior rate or class.
- verb figuratively To
trim orabridge by cutting off parts.
Etymologies
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
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Examples
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[463] A razee is a ship cut down, and reduced from her original rate.
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The bark's crew fired small coal from the galley, and the dories threatened to come aboard and "razee" her.
Captains Courageous Rudyard Kipling 1900
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As Mr. F razee has suggested, traded computer services are a logical and important place to start.
Prospects for the North American Economy: 1985 and Beyond 1984
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At the same time, Roland F razee, Chairman of the Royal Bank of Canada, suggested that we try for an agreement on something he called "traded computer services."
Prospects for the North American Economy: 1985 and Beyond 1984
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"We'll bring him back, boys, if we have ter go ter Virginny City an 'razee the town," said Missoo.
Golden Days for Boys and Girls, Vol. XIII, Nov. 28, 1891 Various
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Holding their glasses in their hands, Mr. J commenced to tell an anecdote, but the suspense becoming too great, the Colonel appealed to him to jump over the bars, and not wait to pull them down, in other words to razee his story so as to proceed with their drinking, which would serve to whet their appetites for the good dinner awaiting their presence.
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The next morning, Decatur discovered the British squadron in pursuit, consisting of the Majestic razee, the Endymion, Tenedos, and Pomona frigates and a brig.
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As a matter of fact the Confederate navy never had but one real man-of-war, the famous _Merrimac_; and she was a mere razee, cut down for a special purpose, and too feebly engined to keep the sea.
Captains of the Civil War; a chronicle of the blue and the gray William Charles Henry Wood 1905
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The North Atlantic squadron is at Hampton Roads, except the frigate Congress and the razee Cumberland; they are anchored at Newport News, blockading the James River and Norfolk.
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He tackled me the day we came in: sort of a razee of poor old humanity -- jury clothes -- full new suit of pimples: knew him at once from your description.
The Wrecker 1898
chained_bear commented on the word razee
"... in the royal navy, an appellation given to a two-decked ship, when the round-house, quarter-deck, and forecastle, are cut down forward and aft to the upper-deck sails, and in midships flush with the deck.... Two-decked ships thus cut down have great advantages over the enemies (sic) frigates, as they carry their guns much higher out of water, and bear a greater weight of metal. They also have a greater height between decks, which is more convenient both to officers and men. They generally carry 28 long 24-pounders on what now becomes the maindeck, and carronades, &c. on the quarter-deck and fore-castle; and have a complement of 470 men."
—Falconer's New Universal Dictionary of the Marine (1816), 386–387
October 11, 2008
yarb commented on the word razee
'The architect of the chimney must have had the pyramid of Cheops before him; for, after that famous structure, it seems modeled, only its rate of decrease towards the summit is considerably less, and it is truncated. From the exact middle of the mansion it soars from the cellar, right up through each successive floor, till, four feet square, it breaks water from the ridgepole of the roof, like an anvil-headed whale, through the crest of a billow. Most people, though, liken it, in that part, to a razeed observatory, masoned up.'
- Melville, I and My Chimney
April 3, 2010