raft
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raft¹
- /ɹɑːft/ UK
- /ɹæft/ US
Rhymes with -ɑːft
Where it comes from
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”). See also Norwegian raft (“beam, rafter”), Danish raft (“thin pole”). Compare also Albanian trap (“raft, ferry”).
noun rafts
- 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
- Any flattish thing, usually wooden, used in a similar fashion. 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, wh
- A thick crowd of aquatic birds, particularly a group floating on the surface of the water. Pelicans, bills stuck forward, would gather in small rafts to move along in comical formation, before diving in unison […]
- A group of aquatic mammals, especially otters and especially when visible on the surface of the water. A raft of otters at rest in the river.
-
A group of alligators or crocodiles, especially when floating in water with their backs visible above the surface.
She even pointed out a bank where a raft of crocodiles lay dozing, baking their scaly backs in the sun.
Similar: congregation
- A collection of logs, fallen trees, etc. which obstructs navigation in a river.
- A slice of toast.
- A square array of sensors forming part of a large telescope.
- A mass of congealed solids that forms on a consommé because of the protein in the egg white.
verb rafts · rafting · rafted
- To convey on a raft. 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.
- To make into a raft.
- To travel by raft.
- To dock (toolbars, etc.) so that they share horizontal or vertical space. The ToolStripContainer provides built-in rafting and docking of ToolStrip, MenuStrip, and StatusStrip controls.
raft²
- /ɹɑːft/ UK
- /ɹæft/ US
Rhymes with -ɑːft
Where it comes from
Alteration of raff.
noun rafts
- 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
raft³
- /ɹɑːft/ UK
- /ɹæft/ US
Rhymes with -ɑːft
verb
- simple past and past participle of reave Colin Clout raft me of his brother
Raft⁴
proper noun
- Acronym of reliable, replicated, redundant, and fault-tolerant, a consensus algorithm. For leader election only the reachable manager nodes are included for Raft consensus.
Thesaurus
Closest in meaning: spate, stack, slew, pile, hatful, pot, heap, mint, wad, mass, batch, deal, lot, great deal, mickle, muckle
Translations
Every language
noun flat, floating structure
| Español | balsa |
|---|---|
| 한국어 | 뗏목 ttenmok |
| 日本語 | いかだ ikada |
| 中文 | 木排 mùpái, 筏 fá, 木筏 mùfá, 竹筏 zhúfá |
| हिन्दी | बेड़ा beṛā |
| Português | balsa, jangada |
| Français | radeau |
| Deutsch | Floß |
| Italiano | zattera |
| Ελληνικά | σχεδία schedía |
| Română | plută |
| Русский | плот plot |
| Tiếng Việt | bè |
| العربية | طَوْف ṭawf, رَمَث ramaṯ |
| עברית | רַפסוֹדָה rafsodá |
noun inflatable floating craft
| 日本語 | ラフト rafuto |
|---|---|
| 中文 | 橡皮艇 xiàngpítǐng |
| Français | canot pneumatique |
| Deutsch | Schlauchboot |
| Italiano | gommone |
| Русский | плот plot, рафт raft |
| العربية | قَارِب مَطَّاطِيّ qārib maṭṭāṭiyy |
| עברית | רַפְסוֹדָה rafsodah |
noun large but unspecified number of something
| Español | multitud |
|---|---|
| Português | multidão |
| Français | multitude, masse |
| Italiano | moltitudine |
| Русский | у́йма újma, ку́ча kúča, мно́жество mnóžestvo |
Talk about this word "raft." Wiktionary, via Micwyn, micwyn.com/word/raft. Accessed 6 Nov. 2026. raft. (n.d.). In Wiktionary, via Micwyn. Retrieved November 6, 2026, from https://micwyn.com/word/raft "raft." Wiktionary, via Micwyn. Accessed November 6, 2026. https://micwyn.com/word/raft.Cite this
@misc{raft_2026,
title = {raft},
howpublished = {Wiktionary, via Micwyn},
year = {2026},
url = {https://micwyn.com/word/raft},
urldate = {2026-11-06}
}
