en.wiktionary.org

raft - Wiktionary, the free dictionary

From Wiktionary, the free dictionary

an inflatable life raft
a wooden raft

Late Middle English, of North Germanic origin, from West Old Norse raptr, from Proto-Germanic *raf-tra-, from Proto-Indo-European *rap-tro-, from *rep- (“stake, beam”).[1] See also Norwegian raft (“beam, rafter”), Danish raft (“thin pole”). Compare also Albanian trap (“raft, ferry”).

raft (plural rafts)

  1. A flat-bottomed craft able to float and drift on water, used for transport or as a waterborne platform.

    They floated down the river on an inflatable raft

  2. (by extension) Any flattish thing, usually wooden, used in a similar fashion.

    • 1934 February, G. W. Tripp, “How Nature Harasses the Railway”, in Railway Magazine, page 79:

      When George Stephenson built the Liverpool & Manchester Railway he encountered the same difficulty at Chat Moss and solved the problem by constructing a kind of raft made of brushwood that more or less floated on the surface of the bog. On this he placed as much firm soil as his raft could carry, when the operation was repeated, the first raft being thereby sunk with its load of solid earth, which was not displaced.

    • 2016 February 2, Kate Winslet et al., Jimmy Kimmel Live!‎[1]:

      Even though in a way you let him freeze to death in the water, because the way I see it...
      I agree. Y'know, I think he actually could have fitted on that bit of door.
      There was plenty of room on the raft.
      I know. I know, I know.

  3. A thick crowd of seabirds or sea mammals, particularly a group of penguins when in the water.

    • 2010, John Roome, A Persistent Passage, page 140:

      Pelicans, bills stuck forward, would gather in small rafts to move along in comical formation, before diving in unison […]

  4. (US) A collection of logs, fallen trees, etc. which obstructs navigation in a river.
  5. (US, slang, when ordering food) A slice of toast.
  6. A square array of sensors forming part of a large telescope.
  7. (cooking) A mass of congealed solids that forms on a consommé because of the protein in the egg white.

flat, floating structure

inflatable floating craft

raft (third-person singular simple present rafts, present participle rafting, simple past and past participle rafted)

  1. (transitive) To convey on a raft.

    • 1969, Stella Parker Peterson, “Growing Pains”, in It Came in Handy‎[2], Washington, D.C.: Review and Herald Publishing Association, →LCCN, →OCLC, page 83:

      For timber I imported pine logs from Manchuria, rafted them two hundred miles down the Yalu River, three hundred miles over the Yellow Sea, and twenty miles up the Tatung River, where a thirty-five-foot tide lifted the consignment to Pyongyang.

  2. (transitive) To make into a raft.
  3. (intransitive) To travel by raft.
  4. (graphical user interface) To dock (toolbars, etc.) so that they share horizontal or vertical space.

    • 2007, Dinesh Maidasani, Straight to the Point - Visual Basic 2005, page 11:

      The ToolStripContainer provides built-in rafting and docking of ToolStrip, MenuStrip, and StatusStrip controls.

  1. ^ Douglas Harper (2001–2025) “raft”, in Online Etymology Dictionary.

Alteration of raff.

raft (plural rafts)

  1. A large (but unspecified) number, a lot.
    • 1977-1980, Lou Sullivan, personal diary, quoted in 2019, Ellis Martin, Zach Ozma (editors), We Both Laughed In Pleasure
      Pomeroy asked me a raft of factual-type questions (how old were you when you began menstruating? did you ever see your parents having intercourse? did you have many friends in high school? how was your relationship with your father?). It seemed he had a written questionnaire & checked off answers as I have them.

    • 2007, Edwin Mullins, The Popes of Avignon, Blue Bridge, published 2008, page 31:

      Among those arrested was the grand master himself, Jacques de Molay, who found himself facing a raft of charges based on the specious evidence of former knights [...].

    • 2023 October 11, Dafydd Pritchard, “Wales 4-0 Gibraltar”, in BBC Sport‎[3]:

      The goals and entertainment dried up after the break as Wales made a raft of substitutions but, with more meaningful challenges to come, a capacity crowd at the Stok Racecourse appreciated the bigger picture with Croatia on the horizon.

raft

  1. (archaic) simple past and past participle of reave

From Ottoman Turkish راف (raf), from Arabic رَفّ (raff), contaminated with rrafsh.

raft m

  1. shelf
  2. horse's phalera (Old Albanian, attested in Frang Bardhi)
  • Bufli, G., Rocchi, L. (2021) “raft”, in A historical-etymological dictionary of Turkisms in Albanian (1555–1954), Trieste: Edizioni Università di Trieste, page 387

Borrowed from English raft.

raft m inan

  1. raft (inflatable floating craft)

Borrowed from Ottoman Turkish راف (raf), from Arabic رَفّ (raff).

raft n (plural rafturi)

  1. shelf