English▸ noun a flat buoyant structure of timber or other materials fastened together, used as a boat or floating platform.
▪ a small, inflatable rubber or plastic boat, especially one for use in emergencies.
▪ a floating mass of fallen trees, vegetation, ice, or other material.
▪ a dense flock of swimming birds or mammals:
great rafts of cormorants, often 5,000 strong.
▪ a layer of reinforced concrete forming the foundation of a building.
▸ verb
1 [no object, with adverbial of direction] travel on or as if on a raft:
I have rafted along the Rio Grande.
▪ [with object and adverbial of direction] transport on or as a raft:
the stores were rafted ashore
I rafted 400 logs to my mill.
▪ (of an ice floe) be driven on top of or underneath another floe.
– ORIGIN late Middle English (in the sense ‘beam, rafter’): from Old Norse raptr ‘rafter’. The verb dates from the late 17th century.