rake
/ɹeɪk/
Word Rarity
Rare
Frequency: Zipf frequency 3.38 in modern English
8
Scrabble Score
4
Letters
1
Syllables
4
Unique Chars
Meaning
noun
A garden tool with a row of pointed teeth fixed to a long handle, used for collecting debris, grass, etc., for flattening the ground, or for loosening soil; also, a similar wheel-mounted tool drawn by a horse or a tractor.
noun
A type of puffer train that leaves behind a stream of spaceships as it moves.
verb
To act upon with a rake, or as if with a rake.
Example Sentences
- "Orion hit a rabbit once; but though sore wounded it got to the bury, and, struggling in, the arrow caught the side of the hole and was drawn out. […] Ikey the blacksmith had forged us a spearhead after a sketch from a picture of a Greek warrior; and a rake-handle served as a shaft."
- "I've been dealing primarily with rake and spaceship interactions for ease of experimentation (a rake will invariably escape before being eaten by even its most hellish progeny, and a spaceship is easy to redraw on the spot)."
- "That would mean building rake guns or glider gun arrays to construct moving walls."
- "The switch engine is unstable but a number of them working in combination can form stable puffers, spaceships and rakes."
- "Plus, his ever-increasing rake of mules were outgrowing the small parcel of acreage he had inherited in Tennessee."
- "making the total payload of a typical rake of mules about 20 times greater than that of even the strongest flameme."
Etymology
From Middle English rake [and other forms], from Old English raca, racu, ræce (“tool with a row of pointed teeth, rake”), from Proto-Germanic *rakō, *rekô (“tool with a row of pointed teeth, rake”), from Proto-Indo-European *h₃reǵ- (“to straighten, right oneself”). Cognates The English word is cognate with Danish rage (chiefly regional), Middle Dutch rāke, rēke (modern Dutch raak, reek (both regional), riek (“pitchfork, rake”)), Middle Low German rāke, racke (modern German Low German Raak (“rake; poker”)), Old High German rehho, rech (Middle High German reche, modern German Rechen (“rake”)), Old Norse reka (“shovel”) (modern Icelandic reka (“shovel”)), Old Saxon recho, Old Swedish raka (modern Swedish raka (“rake; (long) straight section of a road”)).
Origin
Word Breakdown
Regional Pronunciation
- American English: /ɹeɪk/
- British English: /ɹeɪk/
Usage
Inflected Forms
Derived Forms
Phrases
Synonyms
horserake
comb
comb through
go over with a fine-tooth comb
scour
consist
slope
roué
adulterer
bed-hopper
carpetmonger
chamberer