The Latin Neuter Plurals in Romance - Page ON

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Rum. răza is ‘scrape’, and It. razzare ‘scrape’, ‘scratch’, and, in the passive,
‘be streaked’, as well as ‘shine’, like raggiare, old raiare (Dante); modern Fr.
rayer is ‘scratch’, ‘cross out’ (cf. the new verb radier in the same sense),
‘stripe’, ‘streak’, ‘rule (lines on paper)’, ‘rifle (a gun)’; Occ. raia/raja/reia have
the same range of meaning as the Fr. rayer, as well as others like ‘radiate’
(modern Fr. rayonner), ‘dart out’, ‘spurt’, ‘flow’; Catalan has ratllar (old and
dial. rallar/raiar) ‘stripe’, ‘streak’, ‘rule (lines)’, ‘cross out’, ‘rifle’ beside rajar
‘gush forth’, ‘flow out’, and, in old and dialectal Catalan, ‘radiate’ (there is also
another ratllar ‘grate’ from RALLARE); Spanish has rayar as Cat. ratllar beside
rajar ‘split’ and razado ‘streaky’, while Portuguese has raiar ‘radiate’, ‘stripe’,
‘streak’, ‘rifle’ and rajar ‘stripe’, ‘streak’, ‘intermix’. Dialectal French rayer
and Occ. raja (arraja) also have the meaning ‘spread (hay) to dry in the sun’,
like Aran. arraja-s ‘sun oneself’ (and cf. Occ. reia, which can mean ‘feed
animals’), and this is also the meaning of Surs. rasar, Eng. raser (these
languages only have the mascs. radi, raz for ‘ray’), though it is hard to
determine whether these represent RADIARE or rather *RASARE, widely found
with the senses of ‘scrape’, ‘graze’, ‘level (off, to the ground)’. Given such
widespread occurrence, it seems that the idea of ‘scratch’, ‘streak’ developed
early, perhaps through crossing with *RASARE. In Western Romance we also
find noun forms with related meanings, thus modern French raie ‘line’,
‘furrow’, ‘stroke’, ‘streak’, ‘stripe’, ‘parting in the hair’, Occ. raio, Gasc. racho,
which Mistral primarily glosses as ‘raie’, adding synonyms and other meanings
such as ‘train rail’ and ‘line formed by a chain of mountains’, Cat. ratlla (old
and dial. ralla, raia) ‘line’, ‘stripe’, ‘streak’, ‘boundary’, Sp. raya ‘ditto’ and
‘parting’, raja ‘split’, Ptg. raia ‘line’, ‘streak’, ‘boundary’, raja ‘stripe’,
‘streak’ (the Catalan ratlla, and the verb ratllar, present phonological
difficulties which I will return to in a minute).