Other forms: rafts
A raft is a flat floating platform of logs or planks. Build a raft, a life raft, cross on a raft.
It floats by displacement and cannot sink while the material floats, which is why a raft is safer than a boat and far harder to steer. A raft of something means a large number, which is a different word — from an old dialect word meaning a heap. Note that the log sense is Norse.
1nounraftA flat floating platform of logs or planks.
“They tied logs together to make a raft and floated down the river.”
2nounlargeA large number of things.
“The government announced a raft of new measures to cut pollution.”
Too few real examples of this word to estimate which sense is commonest.
raft is a floating platform.
Old Norse raptr means a rafter or beam. Rafter comes from the same beam, and the raft meaning a large number is a different word.
Proto-Indo-European
*rap-tro-
Proto-Germanic
*raf-tra-
Old Norse
raptr
English, today
raft
Built from
Late Middle English -, of gmq - origin, from West Old Norse raptr, from Proto-Germanic raf-tra-, from Proto-Indo-European rap-tro-, from rep- (“stake, beam”). See also Norwegian raft (“beam, rafter”), Danish raft (“thin pole”). Compare also Albanian trap (“raft, ferry”).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA