raft

• (UK) IPA^(key): /ɹɑːft/
• (US) IPA^(key): /ɹæft/

• Audio (US)

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ɑːft

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.

   An inflatable raft. A log raft.

2. (by extension) Any flattish thing, usually wooden, used in a similar fashion.
   • 2016 February 2, Kate Winslet & al., Jimmy Kimmel Live!

     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.

• life raft

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

1. (transitive) To convey on a raft.
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.

• rafter
• whitewater rafting

Alteration of raff.

raft (plural rafts)

1. A large (but unspecified) number, a lot.
   • 2007, Edwin Mullins, The Popes of Avignon, Blue Bridge 2008, p. 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 [...].

raft

1. (archaic) simple past tense and past participle of reave
   • 1579, Immeritô [pseudonym; Edmund Spenser], “August. Aegloga Octaua.”, in The Shepheardes Calender: […], London: […] Hugh Singleton, […], OCLC 606515406; reprinted as H[einrich] Oskar Sommer, editor, The Shepheardes Calender […], London: John C. Nimmo, […], 1890, OCLC 890162479:

     Colin Clout raft me of his brother

• FRTA, RTFA, TRAF, fart, frat, traf

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)

This noun needs an inflection-table template.

Borrowed from English raft.

• IPA^(key): /raft/

raft m

1. raft (inflatable floating craft)

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

raft n (plural rafturi)

1. shelf