raft – English noun declension

English noun forms of raft

Noun: raft
Singularraft
Pluralrafts

Sample Sentences

  • They floated down the river on an inflatable raft
  • 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:]
  • Occasionally, there was a large black raft of birds far out at sea. [2025, Eduard Drost, Birds on the Brink: South Africa’s Threatened Bird Species and Those Working to Save Them, Penguin Random House South Africa:]
  • Margaret River itself, although it seems to be Scott River by Prevelly, flows into the Indian Ocean and creates a sandbank, where sat a raft of terns and gulls. [2010, Andy Gibb, The Honeyeaters' Tree, page 32:]
  • A raft of otters at rest in the river. [2019, Jennifer McCartney, The Little Book of Otter Philosophy, HarperCollins Publishers:]
  • Two score and more of young, able-bodied men they were, to be sure, strong enough, I dare say, to tow a raft of whales alongside in any latitude. [1852 May, H. Milnor Knapp, “The Master's Mate's Yarn”, in Graham's Magazine, page 166:]
  • News of Smith's discovery of the South Shetland Islands, and of the rafts of seals along their shores, spread quickly. [2015, Kenneth J. Panton, Historical Dictionary of the British Empire, Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, page 497:]
  • a raft of otters was feeding at the depth of three hundred feet (50 fathoms) [1979, Jane H. Bailey, Sea Otter, El Moro Publications:]
  • A raft of sea lions playing "king of the buoy". [1999 April, J. Michael Hemsley, Kathleen C. O'Neil and LTJG Lee H. Allison, USCG, “Evicting Sea Lions”, in Mariners Weather Log, U.S. Department of Commerce, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Environmental Data and Information Service, page 25:]
  • She even pointed out a bank where a raft of crocodiles lay dozing, baking their scaly backs in the sun. [2010, Esther Friesner, Sphinx's Queen, Random House Children's Books:]
  • navigation was obstructed by a raft of alligators [1872 October 4, S. Compton Smith, “An Alligator Story”, in The American Scrap Book and Magazine of United States Literature, volume 2, page 379:]
  • There are monkeys, sloths, macaws, parrots, pigeons, toucans, and many other wood-loving creatures; herons, screamers, jacanas, and jabiru storks in the marshes, capybaras on the shores, and rafts of crocodiles on the playas. [1921 October 26, Frank M. Chapman, “Over the Andes to Bogota”, in The National Geographic Magazine, page 373:]

Etymology

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”). See: Old Norse Nouns 'raptr'.

Verbs referencing "raft"

Irish Nouns rafta.