Skip to content
ARCHIEENGLISH
LearnPlayWordsRanking
  • Learn
  • Play
  • Words
  • Ranking
  • Mine
← Vocabulary

rafter

UK/ˈɹɑːftəː/US/ˈɹæftɚ/
nounB2+Rare in speech; mostly a word you read · #14,543 of 15,258leans written

Other forms: rafters

A rafter is one of the sloping beams that carries a roof. Bare rafters, up in the rafters, a rafter foot.

The pairs lean against each other at the ridge and would push the walls apart without a tie across the bottom, which is what the ceiling joists do. Up in the rafters means high inside a hall.

Linda Spashett, Storye book · CC BY 3.0

Definitions of rafter

  1. 1nounrafterOne of the sloping beams that carries a roof.B2+

    “Swallows had built their nests in the rafters of the old barn.”

rafter is a beam.

Where it comes from

Old English raefter names the beam, from a Germanic root related to raft.

  1. Old English

    ræfter

  2. English, today

    rafter

From Old English ræfter, of gem - origin, related to the origin of raft.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practised in Tools & DIY

Practise this word

rafter in the wild

  • The square has many uses, including laying out common rafters, hip rafters and stairs.

    Steel square

  • A pair of rafters is called a couple.

    Rafter

  • In home construction, rafters are normally made of wood.

    Rafter

  • The joint is generally fastened with nails by toenailing the rafter from the side into the top plate below.

    Birdsmouth joint

  • As a general rule, no more than one third of the depth of the rafter should be removed, in order to maintain structural integrity.

    Birdsmouth joint

1 / 2

From Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. These sentences were written by other people about their own subjects; they are here to show the word at work, not as anybody’s opinion.

Related words

the ræfter family

thereafter

rafter — used about once every 54,060 pages · #14,543 · point at the bar for the others