subs. (colloquial).—(1) A novice: also Johnny Raw; (2) anything uncooked, as oysters, sugar, &c.
1820. REYNOLDS, (‘Peter Corcoran’), The Fancy, Glossary. RAW. An Innocent.
1868. Chambers’s Journal, 15 Feb., 110. Soft-going RAWS an’ delicate boys with romantic heads.
1886. Reports from the Consuls of the United States, No. lx. 96. The stock of ‘RAWS’ on hand on the 31st of December, 1884, amounted to 1,000,000 kilograms at Amsterday, and 2,250,000 at Rotterdam.
1889. Century Dictionary, s.v. RAW, 1, II. i. An oyster of a kind preferred for eating RAW: as a plate of RAWS.
2. (colloquial).—A tender point; a foible: as ‘to touch on the RAWS’ = to irritate by allusion or joke; to rub up the wrong way.
1837. MARRYAT, Snarleyyow; or The Dog Fiend, xxxvii. This was touching up Vanslyperken ON THE RAW.
1839. The Comic Almanack, Sept. [HOTTEN], 188. Now they’re gettin’ out of natur, for their RAWS is all a healing.
1868. WILKIE COLLINS, The Moonstone, I. xxii. Sergeant Cuff had hit me ON THE RAW, and, though I did look down upon him with contempt, the tender place still tingled for all that.
1882. R. L. STEVENSON, New Arabian Nights, 248 (1884). The pleasantry TOUCHED HIM ON THE RAW.
1900. KIPLING, Stalky & Co., 65. The ‘honour of the house’ was Prout’s weak point, and they knew well how to flick him ON THE RAW.
Adj. (colloquial).—1. See subs. 1.
2. (common).—Undiluted; NEAT (q.v.); a RAW RECRUIT = a nip of unwatered spirits.
