Raft Meaning
/ɹɑːft/Definition, CEFR level B1, pronunciation, examples, and quiz.
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Definition
nounA flat-bottomed craft able to float and drift on water, used for transport or as a waterborne platform.
nounAny flattish thing, usually wooden, used in a similar fashion.
Sentence Examples
The raft has drifted far off from the shore.
It was an adventure going down the river on a raft.
CEFR Practice Quiz
We tied logs together to form a ____ that could carry us across the lake.
CEFR Practice Quiz (Alternate)
The survivors built a makeshift ____ from driftwood and used it to paddle toward the distant shore.
Word Origin & History
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”).
Literary Quotations & Historical Citations
"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."
— 1934 February, G. W. Tripp, “How Nature Harasses the Railway”, in Railway Magazine, page 79:
"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."
— 2016 February 2, Kate Winslet et al., Jimmy Kimmel Live!:
"Pelicans, bills stuck forward, would gather in small rafts to move along in comical formation, before diving in unison […]"
— 2010, John Roome, A Persistent Passage, page 140:
"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."
— 1969, Stella Parker Peterson, “Growing Pains”, in It Came in Handy, Washington, D.C.: Review and Herald Publishing Association, →LCCN, →OCLC, page 83:
"The ToolStripContainer provides built-in rafting and docking of ToolStrip, MenuStrip, and StatusStrip controls."
— 2007, Dinesh Maidasani, Straight to the Point - Visual Basic 2005, page 11:
Explore More B1 Vocabulary Words
CEFR Practice Quiz
We tied logs together to form a ____ that could carry us across the lake.
CEFR Practice Quiz (Alternate)
The survivors built a makeshift ____ from driftwood and used it to paddle toward the distant shore.