raftsman

American  

[rafts-muhn, rahfts-] / ˈræfts mən, ˈrɑfts- /

noun

• raftsmen
  plural

1. a person who manages or is employed on a raft.

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Other Word Forms

Noun Inflected Forms

• raftsmen
  plural

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Etymology

Origin of raftsman

First recorded in 1770–80; raft ¹ + 's ¹ + -man

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Example Sentences

See Examples For:

raftsman raftsmen

But many Chinese tourists nowadays skip the bamboo-raft river cruise, which costs about $30 for two people, according to Wu Fandong, a 45-year-old raftsman.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 8, 2026

Here he was, a raftsman plying between Cracow and Warsaw, those two hot-beds of Polish patriotism—a mere piece of human driftwood on the river.

From The Vultures by Henry Seton Merriman

It amounted to something being a raftsman on such a craft as that.

From The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn Tom Sawyer's Comrade by Mark Twain

So I stayed, and so as not to be separated from her even for a week, I gave up being a raftsman and became a workman at a foundry.

From The Chief Justice A Novel by Karl Emil Franzos

Why, I met a man out in 'Frisco last month whom I knew, two years ago, as a raftsman on this very river at twenty a month and found.

From Raftmates A Story of the Great River by Kirk Munroe

Young Heyerdahl entertained a theory that Incan raftsmen might thus have freighted their civiliza tion to Polynesia.

From Time Magazine Archive

When you read about Mark Twain's Mississippi raftsmen and pilots, or Bret Harte's Western gold miners, they seem more remote than the cannibals of the Stone Age.

From Time Magazine Archive

The raftsmen on the other side of the forest also aroused his envy.

From Tales of the Caravan, Inn, and Palace by Wilhelm Hauff

The raftsmen, who had welcomed them, now turned hosts and housed the newcomers.

From Vikings of the Pacific The Adventures of the Explorers who Came from the West, Eastward by Agnes C. (Agnes Christina) Laut

Some, who are almost starving, ingratiate themselves with the raftsmen.

From Contemporary Russian Novelists by Serge Persky

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