See also: race

From Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913)

Race \\Race\\, n. [F. race; cf. Pr. & Sp. raza, It. razza; all from OHG. reiza line, akin to E. write. See Write.]

1. The descendants of a common ancestor; a family, tribe, people, or nation, believed or presumed to belong to the same stock; a lineage; a breed.

The whole race of mankind. --Shak.
Whence the long race of Alban fathers come. -- Dryden.
Note: Naturalists and ehnographers divide mankind into several distinct varieties, or races. Cuvier refers them all to three, Pritchard enumerates seven, Agassiz eight, Pickering describes eleven. One of the common classifications is that of Blumenbach, who makes five races: the Caucasian, or white race, to which belong the greater part of the European nations and those of Western Asia; the Mongolian, or yellow race, occupying Tartary, China, Japan, etc.; the Ethiopian, or negro race, occupying most of Africa (except the north), Australia, Papua, and other Pacific Islands; the American, or red race, comprising the Indians of North and South America; and the Malayan, or brown race, which occupies the islands of the Indian Archipelago, etc. Many recent writers classify the Malay and American races as branches of the Mongolian. See Illustration in Appendix.

2. Company; herd; breed.

For do but note a wild and wanton herd, Or race of youthful and unhandled colts, Fetching mad bounds. --Shak.

3. (Bot.) A variety of such fixed character that it may be propagated by seed.

4. Peculiar flavor, taste, or strength, as of wine; that quality, or assemblage of qualities, which indicates origin or kind, as in wine; hence, characteristic flavor; smack.

A race of heaven. --Shak.
Is it [the wine] of the right race ?  --Massinqer.
5. Hence, characteristic quality or disposition. [Obs.]
 And now I give my sensual race the rein. --Shak.
 Some ... great race of fancy or judgment. --Sir W. Temple. 

Syn: Lineage; line; family; house; breed; offspring; progeny; issue.