| 释义 |
▪ I. raft, n.1|rɑːft, -æ-|
Forms: α. 5 rafft, 5–6 rafte, 6– raft. β. 5–7 raff, 6–7 raffe.
[a. ON. rapt-r (Sw. raft, Da. rafte) rafter. The form raff may be partly due to assoc. with raff n.3]
1. A beam, spar, rafter. Now only arch.
c1420Avow. Arth. xxv, Aythir gripus a schafte Was als rude as a rafte, So runnun thay togedur. 1426Lydg. De Guil. Pilgr. 20396 Maystres off dyvers crafftys Hang out, on polys and on rafftys, Dyuers sygnys. 1650W. D. tr. Comenius' Gate Lat. Unl. §446 Especially if it [a barrel] bee laid upon stalls (Rafts, tressels) somwhat high. 1745F. Blomefield Topogr. Hist. Norfolk II. 148 Raftermen, those that deal in Rafts or Timber Pieces. 1820Blackw. Mag. VIII. 147 The roof wags its remotest raft. 1854S. Dobell Balder xxviii. 198 Like a Temple, wherein cost Is absolute, dark beam and hidden raft Shittim.
2. A collection of logs, planks, casks, etc., fastened together in the water, so as to be transported from one place to another by floating.
1497Naval Acc. Hen. VII (1896) 249 Cariage of certeyn mastes to the Watyrsyde and ther to be made in a Raff & so to be conveyed to Portesmouth. 1614Raleigh Hist. World ii. (1634) 424 Hiram caused his Servants to bring downe the Cedars and Firres from Libanon to the Sea, and thence sent them in raffes to Joppe. 1685New Eng. Hist. & Gen. Register (1882) XXXVI. 396 By one Raft of boards qt 12500 ft. 1774Goldsm. Nat. Hist. (1776) VII. 119 [Crocodiles] lying as close to each other, as a raft of timber upon one of our streams. 1806Gazetteer Scotl. (ed. 2) 124 At proper seasons, large rafts of trees are constructed, and floated to the sea. 1863Life in Normandy II. 80 [They] work the rafts of timber and floats of tar barrels down the great rivers to the Gulf of Bothnia.
3. a. A flat structure of logs, inflated skins, or other materials, for the conveyance or support of persons or things on water.
α1590Shakes. Com. Err. v. i. 348 Where is that sonne That floated with thee on the fatall rafte. 1653H. Cogan tr. Pinto's Trav. lxvi. 267 Before it was day they had made a raft of such planks and beams as came to their hands. 1677W. Hubbard Narrative (1865) I. 88 They..either waded over..or else wafted themselves over upon small Rafts of Timber. 1719De Foe Crusoe i. iv, This Raft was so unweildy, and so overloaden, that..it overset. 1790Beatson Nav. & Mil. Mem. II. 354 The building of a large raft, or radeau, to carry some heavy artillery. 1855Macaulay Hist. Eng. xx. IV. 509 Eight large rafts, each carrying many mortars, were moored in the harbour.
transf.a1822Shelley Hom. Merc. xiii, For each foot he wrought a kind of raft Of tamarisk. 1853Kane Grinnell Exp. xxxviii. (1856) 353 Using the frozen water as a raft to traverse the open sea. 1890‘R. Boldrewood’ Col. Reformer (1891) 375 Such a raft of a place as Rainbar.
β1599Hakluyt Voy. II. i. 214 Certaine Zattares or Raffes made of blowen hides or skinnes... These Raffes are bound fast together. 1603Knolles Hist. Turks (1638) 185 Making a little boat, or rather as some suppose a raffe.
b. Mil. A floating bridge.
1802in James Milit. Dict. 1876Voyle & Stevenson Milit. Dict. 322/1 Good rafts can be made of casks or barrels, and form a better bridge than baulks of timber.
4. (Chiefly U.S.) A large floating mass or accumulation of some material, or collection of materials, as fallen trees, logs, vegetation, ice, etc. Also, a dense flock of swimming birds, esp. ducks; similarly, a group of other aquatic animals.
1718[see raft-fowl in 6]. 1802A. Ellicott Jrnl. (1803) 189 The upper raft is of considerable magnitude, and covered with grass and other herbage, with some bushes. 1812Brackenridge Views Louisiana (1814) 48 There is at that point a curious raft, formed of logs and earth, which entirely covers its channel. 1848W. E. Burton Waggeries & Vagaries 70 We've shoals of shad, hull rafts of canvass-back ducks, and no eeend of terrapins. 1852Mrs. Stowe Uncle Tom's C. vii. 43 The descending ice..lodged, and formed a great undulating raft, filling up the river. 1872Fur, Fin & Feather 26 The great collections [of ducks] are termed rafts. 1876R. F. Burton Gorilla L. II. 158 The nymphæa, lotus or water-lily, forms rafts of verdure. 1949Sprunt & Chamberlain S. Carolina Bird Life 135 The Greater Scaup..congregates there in large flocks or ‘rafts’, as they are called. 1952Chambers's Jrnl. Jan. 19/2 That black mass far away to starboard, what is it—brent geese? And the bigger one over there? It looks like a good raft of wigeon. 1959E. Collier Three against Wilderness xxi. 210 A raft of newly hatched geese had been perched on the beaver house. 1961Guardian 4 Mar. 4/1 Rafts of widgeon cry wee-too from the steamer lines. 1972S. Burnford One Woman's Arctic ii. 48 There were long rafts of murres out in the middle. 1975Country Life 16 Jan. 132/3 A tiny band of sea otters..had grown to a raft of 130. 1975P. A. Johnsgard Waterfowl N. Amer. II. 347 Scaup in such rafts do not all forage at the same time.
5. Building. A layer of reinforced concrete forming the foundation of a building.
1903Engineering 17 Apr. 517/1 Finally, the Co-operative Wholesale Society resolved to adopt their architect's recommendation to have recourse to a raft of Hennebique ferro-concrete over the whole area of the ground. 1936Concrete & Constructional Engin. XXXI. 423 There are a great many districts where rafts are the best and often the only solution to foundation problems. 1970R. Jeffries Dead Man's Bluff iii. 21 A concrete raft on which was a feeding trough and about fifty Kow Kennels. 1978Daily Tel. 12 May 19/3 All the floors in the houses are dropping out because they were built on a concrete raft. The raft is now sinking into the peat below.
6. attrib. and Comb., as raft-chain, raft log, raft-man, raft-master, raft tug, raft-voyage, raft-wood, raft-work; raftlike adj.; raftwise adv.; raft-breasted a., of birds: having a keelless sternum (Cent. Dict. 1891); raft-bridge, a bridge made of a raft, or supported by rafts; raft-deck, an under-water protecting deck formerly used to cover the unarmoured parts of some warships; raft-dog, an iron bar, having its ends pointed and bent at right-angles, used to secure logs in a raft; raft-duck, the scaup or blackhead duck (Athya marila), so called from its flocking closely on the water (see also quot. 1824); raft foundation = sense 5 above; raft-fowl (see quot. 1709); raft-port (see quot. 1769); raft spider, a spider which makes a floating nest.
1834–47J. S. Macaulay Field Fortif. (1851) 130 When plenty of heavy timber can be procured, a *raft-bridge may be made.
1846A. Young Naut. Dict. 244 An eye..through which the *raft-chains are rove. 1867Smyth Sailor's Work-bk. 559 There are also dog-hooks..by which the raft-chains are secured.
1886Encycl. Brit. XXI. 822/2 But the sailors of 1854–1860 did not take the view that buoyancy and stability..were the vital parts, needing defence by armour or by a *raft-deck.
1846A. Young Naut. Dict. 244 Secured by means of *raft-dogs, with chains wove through them. 1867Smyth Sailor's Word-bk. 558 A sort of float..fastened together with swifters and raft-dogs.
1824Latham Gen. Hist. Birds X. 302 Scaup Duck..is known in Georgia, and called by some the *Raft Duck. [Note. But the Raft Duck, truly so called, is another species.] Ibid. 352 Raft Duck (Anas fuligula). 1872E. Coues Key to N. Amer. Birds 289 Greater Scaup Duck... Raft Duck. Flocking Fowl. 1975P. A. Johnsgard Waterfowl N. Amer. II. 347 The ‘rafting’ behaviour of migrant and wintering scaup is well known and indicated by their vernacular names—‘raft duck’, ‘flock duck’, and ‘troop duck’.
1904C. F. Marsh Reinforced Concrete 541/1 (Index), *Raft foundations. 1910F. Rings Reinforced Concrete iv. 61 For ordinary level or raft foundations wire meshing or expanded metal are extremely useful. 1974Encycl. Brit. Macropædia III. 458/1 Of mat, or raft, foundation, there are two types—the beam-and-slab type and the flat-slab type.
1709Lawson Carolina 150 *Raft-Fowl includes all the sorts of small Ducks and Teal, that go in Rafts along the Shoar.
1865W. J. Tenney Hist. Rebellion U.S. 224/2 One of the 11-inch Dahlgrens from the..tower upon the *raft-like structure.
1753Washington Jrnl. Writ. 1889 I. 38, I fortunately saved myself by catching hold of one of the *Raft Logs.
1776C. Carroll Jrnl. Miss. Canada in B. Mayer Mem. (1845) 47 Each one is marked, so that the *raft-men..may easily know their own rafts. 1828A. Sherburne Mem. vi. 234 The raft men had the privilenge [sic] of cooking, and sleeping under cover, in the boat. 1847C. Lanman Summer in Wilderness xviii. 111 The principal anglers for this fish are steamboat hands and raftmen. 1903Blackw. Mag. Feb. 228/1 The figures of the raftmen seem to walk magically on the water. 1963A. Smith Throw out Two Hands xv. 153 We wished..to be a raft in the air, and to pay as little attention to our conveyance as raft-men do.
1828J. R. Planché Desc. Danube 56 The *Raft-masters of Munich.
1769Falconer Dict. Marine (1776), *Raft-port, a square hole, cut through the buttocks of some ships, immediately under the counter, to receive the planks or pieces of timber..brought to lade her. 1830Hedderwick Marine Arch. 258 A raft-port in the upper part of the bends and black strakes.
1864–5Wood Homes without H. xxxi. (1868) 597 There is another spider which frequents water, but which only makes a temporary and moveable residence. This is the *Raft Spider (Dolomedes fimbriatus).
1879Lumberman's Gaz. 5 Nov., *Raft tugs are in demand to bring more logs down.
1891‘Mark Twain’ Let. 1 Oct. (1917) II. 558 A pedestrian tour in Europe doesn't begin with a *raft-voyage for hilarity and mild adventure.
1905‘Q’ Shining Ferry i. vi. 61 A hatch opened in her bows, through which the long balks of timber were thrust..to be laid *raftwise and lashed together with chains.
1880C. R. Markham Peruv. Bark 225 One of the rafts..was composed of twelve trunks of *raft-wood.
1892B. Hinton Lord's Return 200 Liking best the *raft-work on the Hudson.
▪ II. raft, n.2 orig. dial. and U.S.|rɑːft, -æ-|
[var. raff n.1, perh. by assoc. with prec.]
A large collection; a crowd; a lot. Freq. in phr. a whole raft of (persons or things).
1830W. A. Ferris Life in Rocky Mts. (1940) vi. 29 We..would have fought a whole raft of them. 1833‘Maj. Downing’ Lett. xiv. (1835) 88 Binny, and Everett, and Gallatin, and a raft more of such kinder fellows. 1876‘Mark Twain’ Tom Sawyer 235 If you was to go to Europe you'd see a raft of 'em hopping around. 1887–In dial. glossaries (Kent, Cumb.). 1922S. Lewis Babbitt viii. 116 They say there's a whole raft of stuff being smuggled across at Detroit. 1936P. Bottome Level Crossing xxiv. 298 You've got to stand on what results there are, and not take on a whole raft of things that have nothing to do with it. 1947‘N. Shute’ Chequer Board x. 298 There's a whole raft o' things here that I never seen before. 1959Sunday Times 7 June 21/5 Only very rich companies with a raft of employees build them. 1972Guardian 19 Oct. 14/4 A year or two of keeping house, loving and looking after a raft of kids. 1977Time 3 Jan. 36/1 There were a whole raft of programs in the '60s followed by eight years when there was no attempt to work with any degree of compassion. 1977Guardian Weekly 16 Oct. 20/2 It has a raft of actors with the energy and skill to bring humour, depth and resonance to even the smallest parts. 1978P. Theroux Picture Palace ix. 71 There was a whole raft of photographers in New York at the time. 1979Amer. Speech LIV. 44 He reserved what he called ‘a great raft’ of Beowulf materials for a more leisurely time.
▪ III. raft, n.3
var. raff n.3 (q.v.).
▪ IV. raft, v.1|rɑːft, -æ-|
[f. raft n.1]
1. trans. To transport by water:
a. in the form of a raft (also transf.)
1706Wooden World Diss. (1708) 3 Charon..rafting the poor Souls astern, like Water-cask. 1768in F. Chase Hist. Dartmouth Coll. (1891) I. 104 The stream..(a branch of Merrimack, by which logs are rafted to the sea). 1792J. Belknap Hist. New Hampsh. III. 207 The lumber..is rafted down that river. 1840Evid. Hull Docks Comm. 84 The ships have to discharge it [timber] in the old dock, and it is rafted round into the harbour. 1881Nature XXIII. 340 All the slabs have been rafted out to sea by the high tide. 1896Kipling Seven Seas 26 With cedars out of Lebanon Which Hiram rafted down. 1921Discovery Feb. 48/1 The water hyacinth..causes an annual loss of one-fourth of the value of the logs rafted down the river. 1961Nature 3 June 856/2 Sial blocks..being rafted to down-welling sites. 1972Sci. Amer. May 62 (caption) In this schematic view the lithosphere is thicker under the continent it is rafting toward a subduction zone.
b. on, or by means of, a raft.
1689H. Kelsey Jrnl. 22 July in Kelsey Papers (1929) 30 This morning tryed to gett over y⊇ mouth of it but could not so..went up y⊇ river to Raft our selves over. 1766in W. Smith Bouquet's Exped. (1868) 126 The carts, provisions and baggage, may be rafted over, or a bridge built. 1827J. F. Cooper Prairie I. ii. 33 We rafted ourselves across. 1845Hood Mermaid of Margate xxv, There was not a box or a beam afloat To raft him from that sad place. 1847Knickerbocker XXIX. 314 We crossed it on the following day, rafting over our horses and equipage with much difficulty. 1972Nat. Geographic Oct. 469/2 Wielding huge sweeps, Peruvians raft bananas down the Ucayali River.
c. to raft off: To float off (water-casks, or the water in them) from the shore to a ship.
1745P. Thomas Jrnl. Anson's Voy. 174 We now continued to raft off Water. 1748Anson's Voy. iii. v. 334 We were obliged to raft off all our cask, and the tide ran so strong, that..we more than once lost the whole raft. 1882Nares Seamanship (ed. 6) 146 The casks must be rafted off to the ship.
2. To form into a raft or rafts. Also with up, and in sense 4 of raft n.1
1745P. Thomas Jrnl. Anson's Voy. 120 A couple of Canoes, which we brought..on purpose to raft and carry up Barreecas. 1800Colquhoun Comm. Thames i. 27 These Logs are rafted in the River. 1833Marryat P. Simple (1863) 221 Our first business was to water the ship by rafting and towing off the casks. 1883J. Fraser Shanty, Forest & River Life xxix. 340 The timber is floated in single pieces down all the numerous tributaries of the Ottawa, and then ‘rafted-up’ at ‘the mouth’ of each. 1891C. Roberts Adrift Amer. 203 A place..where the logs that came down the Chippewa River were rafted. 1924R. Campbell Flaming Terrapin ii. 38 Stacked with flaming spears Old Ocean shone, as swaying through the Night He rafted up his monstrous chandeliers. 1950E. Hemingway Across River xli. 242 They [sc. ducks] must really be rafted up out there, the Colonel thought. 1976Yachts & Yachting 20 Aug. 353/1 In St. Peter Port I have seen yachts rafted-up almost wall-to-wall on the buoys, like the trots used to be at Cowes. 1978J. A. Michener Chesapeake 665 There must have been three thousand ducks rafted there beneath a frozen late-rising moon.
3. To go upon or cross (a river) by means of a raft.
1765R. Rogers Jrnls. (1883) 162 The river St. Francis..is very still water, and may be easily rafted where you cross it. 1808Pike Sources Mississ. ii. (1810) 119 We concluded to raft the river, which we effected with difficulty. 1844J. C. Frémont Rep. Exploring Expedition (1845) 251 We had expected to raft the river. 1955E. Pound Classic Anthol. i. 17 Ready to raft the deep, Wade shallow or dive for gain. 1974Marlboro Herald-Advocate (Bennettsville, S. Carolina) 22 Apr. 6/2 During the four day exercise, members of the 541st engineer company rafted the Rhine river and secured tactical positions.
4. intr. To use a raft for some purpose; to work on or direct a raft.
1741New Eng. Hist. & Gen. Register (1879) XXXIII. 330 We met with great difficulty in passing that River, first attempting to wade,..then tried to Raft. 1808Pike Sources Mississ. (1810) 88 We could not cross the river, unless we rafted. 1840Evid. Hull Docks Comm. 122 They cannot raft out of the old dock. 1888Academy XXXIV. 301/2 They canoed, and rafted, and steam-boated.
5. intr. Of an ice floe: to be driven on top of or underneath another floe. Also trans., to drive (ice) in this way.
1883Hatton & Harvey Newfoundland iii. iii. 301 Or, under pressure of the storm, it frequently happens that the ice is ‘rafted’, as the sealers call it; that is, the fragments are piled in layers one over the other to the height of thirty or forty feet, being lifted by the swell and hurled forward as if from huge catapults. 1919E. Shackleton South i. 11 In obedience to renewed pressure this young ice ‘rafts’, so forming double thicknesses of a toffee-like consistency. 1939Beaver Mar. 13/2 On the sea and large lakes ice seldom forms smoothly. Early storms break it and pack it in confusion, and pressure causes it to ‘raft’.
▪ V. raft, v.2 rare—1.
[f. raft n.1 1.]
= rafter v.
1804Trans. Soc. Arts XXII. 70 The roof rafted and thatched by myself.
▪ VI. raft, v.3 south. dial.|ræft|
[Origin unknown.]
trans. To rouse; to disturb, disquiet, or unsettle. Hence ˈrafted ppl. a.2, ˈrafting ppl. a.2
1851Gloss. Provincial Words Dorset 6 Raft, to irritate. 1895Hardy Jude iv. iv. 290 ‘I think you are rafted, and not yourself,’ he continued. ‘Do go back and make up your mind to put up with a few whims.’ 1896― Under Greenw. Tree (rev. ed.) i. iv. 32 They should ha' stuck to strings. Your brass-man is a rafting dog—well and good; your reed-man is a dab at stirring ye—well and good; your drum-man is a rare bowel-shaker—good again. 1904in Eng. Dial. Dict. V. 11/1 When a sick person is at the point of death, old nurses think it wrong to disturb the spirit of the dying by speaking to him, lest by doing so his spirit may be ‘rafted’, i.e. disturbed by earthly thoughts, and so bereft of the consolation of religion [Hants.]. 1920Hardy Coll. Poems 377 My rafted spirit would not rest.
▪ VII. raft, ppl. a. rare—1.
[Arch. for reft.]
Torn off.
1818Keats Endym. i. 334 The raft Branch down sweeping from a tall ash top.
▪ VIII. raft(e
obs. or arch. pa. tense and pa. pple. reave. |