▪ I. rafter, n.1
(ˈrɑːftə(r), -æ-)
Forms: α. 1 ræfter, reafter, 1–3 ræftr-, 1–4 reftr-, 2–4 raftr-, 3–7 refter, 4 raftere, (rafterer), raftyr, 4 (5 Sc.) raftre, (7 rafture), 4– rafter. β. 6 raughter, Sc. rach-, rauch-, rawch-, raychter.
[O.E. ræfter = MLG. rafter, rachter, related to ON. rapt-r raft n.1 The Sc. forms with ch are prob. from LG.]
1. One of the beams which give slope and form to a roof, and bear, directly or indirectly, the outer covering of slates, tiles, thatch, etc.
angle-rafter, binding-rafter, cushion-rafter, hip-rafter, jack-rafter: see under the first element. principal rafter, a strong beam in a truss, lying under the common rafters or ordinary rafters.
| α a 700 Epinal Gloss. 11 Amites, reftras. c 900 tr. Bæda's Hist. iii. xiv. [xvi.] (1890) 202 Micelne ád gesomnade on beamum & on ræftrum. c 1050 Byrhtferth's Handboc in Anglia VIII. 324 Þa syllan man fæᵹere ᵹefeᵹð, and þa beamas ᵹeleᵹþ, and þa ræftras to þære fyrste ᵹefæstnað. c 1275 Lay. 7839 Þeos reftres stode, hi-hud in þan flode. 1340 Ayenb. 175 Þe ypocrites..ysyeþ bet mot ine þe oþres eȝe and ne ysyeþ naȝt þane refter ine hire oȝene eȝe. c 1386 Chaucer Knt.'s T. 132 He..rente adoun bothe wall, and sparre, and rafter. c 1470 Henry Wallace vii. 449 Brundis fell off raftreis thaim amang. 1555 Eden Decades 159 To lade his neighbours waules with rafters or beames. 1594 Plat Jewell-ho. i. 10 The principall postes, the Rafters, and the beames of any house. 1667 Primatt City & C. Build. 86 Single Rafter being four foot long, and four and three and a half in thickness. 1726 Pope Odyss. xxii. 262 Perch'd like a swallow on a rafter's height. 1823 P. Nicholson Pract. Build. 128 Common rafters are inclined pieces of timber, parallel to the principal rafters. 1865 G. Macdonald A. Forbes 21 Her eyes rested on nothing but bare rafters and boards. |
| transf. and fig. c 1200 Vices & Virtues 95 Cariteð..arist up anon to ðe roue, forðan to hire bieð ifastned alle ðe raftres of ðe hali mihtes. c 1590 Greene Fr. Bacon xi. 13 The rafters of the earth rent from the poles..When Bacon read upon his magic book. 1635 Swan Spec. M. iv. §2 (1643) 58 The heaven it self, whose beams or rafters are laid in the waters. 1844 Willis Lady Jane ii. 150 ‘Fame's proud temple’, build it ne'er so proud, Finds notoriety a useful rafter. 1891 C. E. Norton Dante's Purgat. xxx. 193 Even as the snow, among the living rafters upon the back of Italy, is congealed. |
| β 1500–20 Dunbar Poems xxxiii. 37 His yrnis was rude as ony rawchtir. 1551 Aberdeen Reg. V. 21 (Jam.) Ane schip laidnit with rachteris and dalis. 1592 Lyly Gallathea i. iii, I will..hang myselfe on a raughter in the house. |
† b. A large beam such as is used for a rafter.
| 1553 Brende Q. Curtius G j, To the deisturbaunce of the shippes that approched the walles, they devised longe rafters. 1579–80 North Plutarch (1676) 584 They left their Rafters or great pieces of timber pinned together, where⁓upon they had passed over the stream. 1652 Earl of Monmouth tr. Bentivoglio's Hist. Relat. 2 Rampires of Earth, built up with great Stones, Raftures of Wood [etc.]. 1697 Potter Antiq. Greece iii. xv. (1715) 127 [The Sides of the Ship] were compos'd of large Rafters extended from Prow to Stern. |
c. U.S. A transverse bar (of wood or iron) in the roof of a railway-car.
2. = rafter-bird (see 3).
| 1802 G. Montagu Ornithol. Dict. (1833) 398. |
3. attrib. and
Comb., as
rafter-end,
rafter foot,
rafter-frame,
rafter-nail,
rafter-tree;
rafter-wise adv.;
rafter-bird, the beam-bird, spotted flycatcher (
cf. sense 2);
rafter-level (
U.S.), a kind of level made of long spars of wood;
rafter-ridging = raftering 2;
rafter-roof, a roof constructed with rafters;
rafter-timbering Mining (see
quot.).
| 1817 T. Forster Nat. Hist. Swallowtribe (ed. 6) 75 Muscicapa grisola,..*Rafterbird. 1885 Swainson Names Birds 48 From the site of its nest, which is generally placed..on a beam or rafter of an out-building, this bird is called..Rafter or Rafter-bird. |
| 1895 Educat. Rev. Sept. 118 Rough walls and protruding *rafter-ends. |
| 1825 J. Nicholson Operat. Mechanic 567 Framing the *rafter foot into the girder. |
| 1871 B. Taylor Faust (1875) II. iii. 181 The lofty beam, upholding *rafter-frame and roof. |
| 1834 Brit. Husb. I. 534 In America, where it is much used for ascertaining the declination of land, it is called a *rafter-level. |
| 1730 Savery in Phil. Trans. XXXVI. 296 The largest Sort of *Rafter-Nails. |
| 1838 Holloway Prov. Dict., *Rafter Ridging, a mode of ploughing land, which is performed as follows [etc.]. Hants. |
| 1847 R. & J. A. Brandon Anal. Goth. Archit. (1860) I. 92 Sometimes a trussed *rafter-roof spans both the nave and the aisles. 1887 Dict. Arch., s.v. |
| 1881 Raymond Mining Gloss., *Rafter-timbering, timbering in which the pieces are arranged like the rafters of a house. |
| 1819 W. Tennant Papistry Storm'd (1827) 210 Ceiling dark and *rafter-treen. |
| 1676 Plot Oxfordsh. 251 Wheat..they shock it *rafter-wise, ten sheaves in a shock. |
▪ II. rafter, n.2 (
ˈrɑːftə(r),
-æ-)
[f. raft n.1 or v.1 + -er1.] 1. One who is employed in rafting timber.
| 1809 Kendall Travels III. 305 That the rafters should relinquish..the earnings of their immediate hands. 1851–61 Mayhew Lond. Labour III. 295 The labourers connected with this portion of the trade are rafters or raftsmen. 1891 C. Roberts Adrift in Amer. 206 The rafters were engaged in making the rafts up. 1905 ‘Q’ Shining Ferry vi. 70 In fifty strokes he brought her alongside the barque where the rafters—twenty-five or thirty—were at work. 1936 [see cross-cutter]. 1954 A. M. Bezanson Sodbusters invade Peace xxii. 160 Rafters kept coming quite a while. They all finally got tired waiting for God to freeze the rivers again, and came down on rafts. |
2. One who travels on a raft.
| 1978 TV Bk. (Detroit Free Press) 16–22 Apr. 21/2 Adventures of a group of white water rafters on the Chatooga River in South Carolina. 1979 Sunset Apr. 38 (caption) Jagged, glacier-dotted Mount Moran hobnobs with the clouds as rafters laze along Jackson Lake towards shore for Teton camping. |
▪ III. rafter, v. (
ˈrɑːftə(r),
-æ-)
Also 6
raufter.
[f. rafter n.1] 1. trans. To build or furnish with rafters. Also
fig.| 1538 Elyot Dict., Contigno,..to raufter a house. 1611 Bible 2 Chron. xxxiv. 11 Timber for couplings and to floore [marg. rafter] the houses. 1853 Kane Grinnell Exp. v. (1856) 39 A square inclosure of stone or turf is raftered over with drift-wood or whalebones. 1869 D. Greenwell Carmina Crucis 36 Ivory palaces raftered with..cedar. 1935 C. Day Lewis Time to Dance 64 A hungry soul Urged them to try new air-routes, and their skill Raftered the sky with steel. |
2. Agric. To plough (land) in a certain way (see
quot. 1846, and
cf. raftering vbl. n. 2).
| a 1733 [see raftering vbl. n. 2]. 1794 Young in Driver Gen. View Agric. Hants 68 Raftering the land, which is a sort of rest baulk ploughing. 1844 Jrnl. R. Agric. Soc. V. i. 173 The land is raftered, and pared with the breast-plough; or raftered again in a cross-direction. 1846 Clarke in Jrnl. R. Agric. Soc. VII. ii. 511 To rafter or plough-rafter the land..is to plough only one-half of the land, turning the furrow ploughed upon the same breadth of land remaining unploughed throughout the field. |
3. To form into rafters (Worcester, 1846).
4. intr. Of ice:
= raft v.
1 5.
N. Amer.| 1792 G. Cartwright Jrnl. II. p. vii, Raftering of ice. Ice is said to rafter, when, by being stopped in its passage, one piece is forced under another, until the uppermost ones rise to a great height. 1861 L. De Boilieu Recoll. Labrador Life viii. 100 It is a sad sight to see a ship on the weather edge of ice not enabled to work off; for when the ice begins to rafter she is thrown up, falls over, and becomes like corn between two millstones, and is literally ground up. 1908 N. Duncan Every Man for Himself ii. 60 The ice begun t' drive an' grind an' rafter. 1924 R. J. Flaherty My Eskimo Friends iii. iii. 99 Miles and miles of ice, raftering and rearing and overriding us it fought its way to the sea. 1964 Newfoundland Q. Spring 16/3 Evidently, just like frozen masses of ice raftered, one layer rising above the other by pressure, the crust of the earth broke and travelled southward. |