raft

/ræft/

/rɑft/

Other forms: rafts; rafting; rafted

A raft is a vessel or structure that's made to float on water. You might have an inflatable raft you use for floating around your backyard pool.

Rafts come in many forms, from soft and squishy to wooden and permanent, like the rafts built on lakes for swimmers to rest on and dive off. Other rafts are mobile — they're small, flat boats meant for transporting people or goods across a river, for example. If you raft, you travel by raft. Experts guess that raft comes from the Old Norse word raptr, "log."

Definitions of raft

1. noun

   a flat float (usually made of logs or planks) that can be used for transport or as a platform for swimmers
   types:

   Kon Tiki, balsa raft

   a light raft made of balsa

   Carling float, life raft

   a raft to use if a ship must be abandoned in an emergency

   type of:

   float

   something that floats on the surface of water
2. verb

   transport on a raft
   “raft wood down a river”

   type of:

   transport

   move something or somebody around; usually over long distances
3. verb

   make into a raft
   “raft these logs”

   type of:

   construct, fabricate, manufacture

   put together out of artificial or natural components or parts
4. verb

   travel by raft in water
   “Raft the Colorado River”

   type of:

   go, locomote, move, travel

   change location; move, travel, or proceed, also metaphorically
5. noun

   (often followed by `of') a large number or amount or extent
   synonyms: batch, deal, flock, good deal, great deal, hatful, heap, lot, mass, mess, mickle, mint, mountain, muckle, passel, peck, pile, plenty, pot, quite a little, sight, slew, spate, stack, tidy sum, wad

   types:

   barrage, deluge, flood, flurry, inundation, torrent

   an overwhelming number or amount

   haymow

   a mass of hay piled up in a barn for preservation

   type of:

   large indefinite amount, large indefinite quantity

   an indefinite quantity that is above the average in size or magnitude