rail

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English[edit]

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Pronunciation[edit]

Etymology 1[edit]

Old French reille, Latin regula (“rule, bar”), from regere (“to rule, to guide, to govern”); see regular.

Noun[edit]

rail (plural rails)

  1. A horizontal bar extending between supports and used for support or as a barrier; a railing.
    • 1913, Joseph C. Lincoln, chapter 7, Mr. Pratt's Patients:
      Old Applegate, in the stern, just set and looked at me, and Lord James, amidship, waved both arms and kept hollering for help. I took a couple of everlasting big strokes and managed to grab hold of the skiff's rail, close to the stern.
  2. The metal bar that makes the track for a railroad.
    • 2013 June 1, “Ideas coming down the track”, The Economist, volume 407, number 8838, page 13 (Technology Quarterly): 
      A “moving platform” scheme […] is more technologically ambitious than maglev trains even though it relies on conventional rails. Local trains would use side-by-side rails to roll alongside intercity trains and allow passengers to switch trains by stepping through docking bays.
  3. A railroad; a railway.
  4. A horizontal piece of wood that serves to separate sections of a door or window.
  5. (surfing) One of the lengthwise edges of a surfboard.
    • circa 2000, Nick Carroll, surfline.com [1]:
      Rails alone can only ever have a marginal effect on a board's general turning ability.
Derived terms[edit]
Terms derived from the noun "rail"
Translations[edit]
The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables, removing any numbers. Numbers do not necessarily match those in definitions. See instructions at Help:How to check translations.
Translations to be checked

Verb[edit]

rail (third-person singular simple present rails, present participle railing, simple past and past participle railed)

  1. (intransitive) To travel by railway.
    • Rudyard Kipling
      Mottram of the Indian Survey had ridden thirty and railed one hundred miles from his lonely post in the desert […]
  2. (transitive) To enclose with rails or a railing.
    • Ayliffe
      It ought to be fenced in and railed.
  3. (transitive) To range in a line.
    • Francis Bacon
      They were brought to London all railed in ropes, like a team of horses in a cart.

Etymology 2[edit]

French râle, Old French rasle. Compare Medieval Latin rallus. Named from its harsh cry, Vulgar Latin *rasculum, from Latin rādere (“to scrape”).

Noun[edit]

rail (plural rails)

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Wikispecies

  1. Any of several birds in the family Rallidae.
Derived terms[edit]
Related terms[edit]
Translations[edit]

See also[edit]

Etymology 3[edit]

From Middle French railler.

Verb[edit]

rail (third-person singular simple present rails, present participle railing, simple past and past participle railed)

  1. To complain violently (against, about).
    • 2012 June 4, Lewis Smith, “Queen's English Society says enuf is enough, innit?”, the Guardian:
      The Queen may be celebrating her jubilee but the Queen's English Society, which has railed against the misuse and deterioration of the English language, is to fold.
    • 1994, Nelson Mandela, Long Walk to Freedom, Abacus 2010, p. 27:
      Chief Joyi railed against the white man, whom he believed had deliberately sundered the Xhosa tribe, dividing brother from brother.
Translations[edit]

Etymology 4[edit]

Old English hræġl.

Noun[edit]

rail (plural rails)

  1. (obsolete) An item of clothing; a cloak or other garment.
  2. (obsolete) Specifically, a woman's headscarf or neckerchief.
    (Can we find and add a quotation of Fairholt to this entry?)
Derived terms[edit]

Etymology 5[edit]

Probably from Anglo-Norman raier, Middle French raier.

Verb[edit]

rail (third-person singular simple present rails, present participle railing, simple past and past participle railed)

  1. (obsolete) To gush, flow (of liquid).
    • 1485, Thomas Malory, Le Morte Darthur, Book V:
      his breste and his brayle was bloodé – and hit rayled all over the see.
    • 1596, Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene, IV.2:
      So furiously each other did assayle, / As if their soules they would attonce haue rent / Out of their brests, that streames of bloud did rayle / Adowne, as if their springes of life were spent [...].

Anagrams[edit]

Dutch[edit]

Pronunciation[edit]

Noun[edit]

rail f (plural rails, diminutive railtje n)

  1. rail

French[edit]

Pronunciation[edit]

Etymology[edit]

From English rail.

Noun[edit]

rail m (plural rails)

  1. rail

Anagrams[edit]

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