raft
1 Americannoun
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a more or less rigid floating platform made of buoyant material or materials.
an inflatable rubber raft.
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a collection of logs, planks, casks, etc., fastened together for floating on water.
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Building Trades. a slab of reinforced concrete providing a footing on yielding soil, usually for a whole building, so that the weight of the soil that would be displaced by the settlement of the building exceeds the weight of the building itself; mat.
verb (used with object)
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rafts,
present (3rd person singular)
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rafted,
past participle, past
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rafting
present participle
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to transport on a raft.
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to form (logs or the like) into a raft.
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to travel or cross by raft.
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(of an ice floe) to transport (embedded organic or rock debris) from the shore out to sea.
verb (used without object)
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rafts,
present (3rd person singular)
-
rafted,
past participle, past
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rafting
present participle
-
to use a raft; go or travel on a raft.
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(of an ice floe) to overlap another ice floe.
noun
noun
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a buoyant platform of logs, planks, etc, used as a vessel or moored platform
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a thick slab of reinforced concrete laid over soft ground to provide a foundation for a building
verb
noun
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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raftsimple
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raftssimple
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have raftedperfect
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has raftedperfect
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am raftingprogressive
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are raftingprogressive
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is raftingprogressive
-
have been raftingperfect progressive
-
has been raftingperfect progressive
Past
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raftedsimple
-
had raftedperfect
-
was raftingprogressive
-
were raftingprogressive
-
had been raftingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of raft1
First recorded in 1300–50; Middle English raft(e), “(wooden) beam, spear,” from Old Norse raptr rafter 1
Origin of raft2
An Americanism dating back to 1825–35; variant of raff
Explanation
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."
Vocabulary lists containing raft
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
Each of these viruses comes with a raft of symptoms ranging from unpleasant to, in some cases, fatal—fever, headache, muscle and joint pain, shock, organ failure.
From Slate ● Aug. 4, 2026
They’re looking for photos and videos of the child on a raft or boat with other children, and witnesses who could have seen the child before she was pulled from the water.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 3, 2026
Iraola did make a raft of changes at the break and in the second half but that is no excuse for the way they capitulated against Daniel Farke's side.
From BBC ● Aug. 2, 2026
Roughly half of the crew descended onto a life raft, ready to abandon the ship.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 31, 2026
She snatched up the console and ran toward the raft, which got Leo moving.
From "The House of Hades" by Rick Riordan
Citizen Zoo has also set up camera traps and "latrine rafts" - floating rafts where the water voles defecate - to help gather evidence of the population on the Hogsmill.
From BBC ● Aug. 14, 2026
“He’s landing rockets on robot drone rafts in the ocean, and you’re saying he doesn’t know what he’s doing,” Ellison rebuffed critics at the time.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 13, 2026
No, the truly strange thing — still remarkable to experience among thousands — is the way their fame is grounded in epic rafts of sci-fi nerdiness.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 8, 2026
Photos shared by the Royal Thai Navy showed heavy black smoke billowing from the hull and superstructure of the Thai-registered Mayuree Naree, with life rafts floating in the water.
From Barron's ● Mar. 11, 2026
Well, flying rafts don’t come with seat belts, and the rock lasers were all riled up.
From "Tristan Strong Punches a Hole in the Sky" by Kwame Mbalia
The first mammal from South America discovered in the older beds was from a primate species, which is presumed to have rafted across the seaway.
From Science Daily ● Feb. 20, 2024
In Wyoming, the Thomases fished, rafted on the Snake River and sat by a campfire overlooking the Teton Range with the other couples.
From Salon ● Aug. 10, 2023
By then he’d served as captain and guide on many California rivers, and he’d rafted the Colorado River.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 26, 2023
Pamina was operating “without sufficient competent crew,” states a Feb. 23 filing by Seattle resident Nicholas Leede, whose 39-foot sailboat suffered $62,117 in damage while rafted in the back row.
From Seattle Times ● May 28, 2023
“NOTES: “Today I rafted out into the deep pools of the creek to fish.
From "My Side of the Mountain" by Jean Craighead George
Activities "such as skydiving, white-water rafting, roller coasters or other amusement rides" would "fall short of the standard".
From BBC ● Jul. 24, 2026
The theme park’s latest project is a more than $50 million indoor thrill coaster with white-water rafting.
From The Wall Street Journal ● May 30, 2026
Marczak said he had begun the film almost by accident, when he and his wife were rafting down the river thinking about a fiction project when they ran into trouble.
From Barron's ● Jan. 24, 2026
A British woman has died on a white-water rafting excursion in the French Alps.
From BBC ● Jul. 20, 2025
When I was finally allowed to read it, I very well knew this was no simple tale of rafting down a river but the everlasting story of America itself, with all our glory and shame.
From "October Sky" by Homer Hickam
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
