rail

Definition from Wiktionary, the free dictionary
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See also: raíl

English[edit]

English Wikipedia has articles on:
Wikipedia

Pronunciation[edit]

  • IPA(key): /ɹeɪl/, [ɹeɪɫ]
  • Audio (US)
    		(file)
  • Rhymes: -eɪl

Etymology 1[edit]

From Middle English rail, rayl, *reȝel, *reȝol (found in reȝolsticke (“a ruler”)), partly from Old English regol (“a ruler, straight bar”) and partly from Old French reille; both from 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, in 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”, in 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, as a means of transportation.
    We travelled to the seaside by rail.
    a small Scottish village not accessible by rail
  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.
    • c. 2000, Nick Carroll, surfline.com [1]:
      Rails alone can only ever have a marginal effect on a board's general turning ability.
  6. (Internet) A vertical section on one side of a web page.
    We're experimenting with ads in the right-hand rail.
  7. (drugs) A large line (portion or serving of a powdery illegal drug).

Derived terms[edit]
Terms derived from the noun rail
Descendants[edit]
  • → Japanese: レール (rēru)
Translations[edit]
means of transportation — see railway
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 Wiktionary:Entry layout#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.
    • (Can we date this quote by Rudyard Kipling and provide title, author's full name, and other details?)
      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.
    • (Can we date this quote by Ayliffe and provide title, author's full name, and other details?)
      It ought to be fenced in and railed.
  3. (transitive) To range in a line.
    • (Can we date this quote by Francis Bacon and provide title, author's full name, and other details?)
      They were brought to London all railed in ropes, like a team of horses in a cart.
  4. to criticize severely.
Derived terms[edit]

Translations[edit]

Etymology 2[edit]

From 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)

English Wikipedia has an article on:
Wikipedia
Wikispecies has information on:

Wikispecies

  1. Any of several birds in the family Rallidae.
Usage notes[edit]
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).
    • 1882, Mark Twain, The Stolen White Elephant, [2]
      Now that the detectives were in adversity, the newspapers turned upon them, and began to fling the most stinging sarcasms at them. This gave the minstrels an idea, and they dressed themselves as detectives and hunted the elephant on the stage in the most extravagant way. The caricaturists made pictures of detectives scanning the country with spy-glasses, while the elephant, at their backs, stole apples out of their pockets. And they made all sorts of ridiculous pictures of the detective badge—you have seen that badge printed in gold on the back of detective novels no doubt, it is a wide-staring eye, with the legend, “WE NEVER SLEEP.” When detectives called for a drink, the would-be facetious barkeeper resurrected an obsolete form of expression and said, “Will you have an eye-opener?” All the air was thick with sarcasms. But there was one man who moved calm, untouched, unaffected, through it all. It was that heart of oak, the chief inspector. His brave eye never drooped, his serene confidence never wavered. He always said: “Let them rail on; he laughs best who laughs last.”
    • 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.
    • 2012 June 4, Lewis Smith, “Queen’s English Society says enuf is enough, innit?: Society formed 40 years ago to protect language against poor spelling and grammar closes because too few people care”, in The Guardian‎[3], London, archived from the original on 10 March 2016:
      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.
Translations[edit]

Etymology 4[edit]

From Middle English rail, reil, from Old English hræġl (“garment, dress, robe”). Cognate with Old Frisian hreil, reil, Old Saxon hregil, Old High German hregil (“clothing, garment, dress”).

Alternative forms[edit]

Noun[edit]

rail (plural rails)

  1. (obsolete) An item of clothing; a cloak or other garment; a dress.
  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, of a liquid) To gush, flow.
    • a. 1472, Thomas Malory, “Capitulum iv”, in [Le Morte Darthur], book V, [London: […] by William Caxton], published 31 July 1485, OCLC 71490786; republished as H[einrich] Oskar Sommer, editor, Le Morte Darthur […], London: Published by David Nutt, […], 1889, OCLC 890162034:
      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 […].

See also[edit]

Anagrams[edit]

Dutch[edit]

Etymology[edit]

Borrowed from English rail.

Pronunciation[edit]

Noun[edit]

rail f (plural rails, diminutive railsje n or railtje n)

  1. rail

Usage notes[edit]

The diminutive railsjes is only used if used for railway tracks.[1]

References[edit]

  1. ^ http://taaladvies.net/taal/advies/vraag/1519/railsje_railtje/

French[edit]

Etymology[edit]

From English rail.

Pronunciation[edit]

Noun[edit]

rail m (plural rails)

  1. rail

Further reading[edit]

Anagrams[edit]

Spanish[edit]

Noun[edit]

rail m (plural railes)

  1. Alternative form of raíl

Further reading[edit]

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