raff

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See also: Raff

English

Pronunciation

Etymology 1

From Middle English raf, from Old French raffer, of Germanic origin; compare German raffen, akin to rap (“to snatch”). Compare riffraff, rip (“to tear”).

Noun

raff (countable and uncountable, plural raffs)

  1. A promiscuous heap; a jumble; a large quantity; lumber; refuse.
    • 1680, Isaac Barrow, A Discourse Concerning The Unity Of The Church:
      A raff of errors.
  2. The common rabble or mob; riffraff.
    • 1839, Charles Dickens, Oliver Twist‎:
      Jostling with unemployed labourers of the lowest class, ballast-heavers, coal-whippers, brazen women, ragged children, and the raff and refuse of the river, he makes his way with difficulty along […]
  3. A low fellow; a churl.
Derived terms

Verb

raff (third-person singular simple present raffs, present participle raffing, simple past and past participle raffed)

  1. To sweep, snatch, draw, or huddle together; to take by a promiscuous sweep.
    • 1609, Richard Carew, The Survey of Cornwall. , new edition, London: B. Law, ; Penzance, Cornwall: J. Hewett, published 1769, →OCLC:
      Causes and effects which I thus raffe up together.

Etymology 2

Alternative forms

Noun

raff (plural raffs)

  1. (nautical) A three-cornered sail set on a schooner when before the wind.

Part or all of this entry has been imported from the 1913 edition of Webster’s Dictionary, which is now free of copyright and hence in the public domain. The imported definitions may be significantly out of date, and any more recent senses may be completely missing.
(See the entry for “raff”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.)

Anagrams

German

Pronunciation

Verb

raff

  1. singular imperative of raffen
  2. (colloquial) first-person singular present of raffen

Welsh

Pronunciation

Noun

raff

  1. Soft mutation of rhaff.

Mutation

Welsh mutation
radical soft nasal aspirate
rhaff raff unchanged unchanged
Note: Some of these forms may be hypothetical. Not every possible mutated form of every word actually occurs.

Further reading

  • R. J. Thomas, G. A. Bevan, P. J. Donovan, A. Hawke et al., editors (1950–present), “raff”, in Geiriadur Prifysgol Cymru Online (in Welsh), University of Wales Centre for Advanced Welsh & Celtic Studies
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