1A flat buoyant structure of timber or other materials fastened together, used as a boat or floating platform.

1. 1.1A small, inflatable rubber or plastic boat, especially one for use in emergencies.
   ‘It turned out that the chopper was homing in on the emergency locator beacon that activated when the raft was inflated.’
   More example sentences

   • ‘They were taking down our coordinates every 15 minutes in case we got washed under and had to take the rubber raft and jump into our survival suits.’
   • ‘He and pilot Russell Phillips managed to survive 47 days on a rubber raft with no provisions amidst menacing swarms of sharks.’
   • ‘As a result, he came upon and rescued four people in an emergency raft.’
   • ‘Maybe the excitement encouraged us to take another brave step - riding on a long, light rubber raft being towed behind one of the power boats.’
   • ‘‘Adak found four crewmen from the tug in a rubber raft,’ the captain told Navy News.’
   • ‘I made the mistake of thinking that they had given up and commandeered my favorite inflatable raft to float me around the pool.’
   • ‘Within minutes, they had the raft inflated and on the water.’
   • ‘A dozen tourists wander through the colony, having arrived by Zodiac rubber raft from their cruise ship.’
   • ‘The people had been inside or were clinging to the side of a rubber raft for between six and eight hours before they were rescued.’
   • ‘He grabbed his own bag and the first aid kit, throwing them onto the newly inflated raft before jumping from the plane just before the door became fully immersed.’
   • ‘This is the perfect place to use that inflatable raft that's been stashed in the garage.’
   • ‘They worked together to help survivors jump from the ship into the raft.’
   • ‘I've been on Coast Guard vessels and they can move rafts on and off boats pretty quickly, on and off ships.’
   • ‘But there were those who faced a more protracted end: numbed into insensibility after days of clinging to a raft or boat in the stormy north Atlantic.’
   • ‘Orr takes me on a terrifying spin in a blow-up raft down the Lagan.’
   • ‘We dropped more flares to vector the tugboat to the raft.’
   • ‘The captain and his crew were left drifting aimlessly on the tiny raft after their boat, the Gullborg, exploded south of Shetland almost 32 years ago.’
   • ‘He also knew that it was impossible to lower lifeboats and rafts to save the crew and the vessel's passengers.’
   • ‘Although the company reports that a handful of rafts self-inflated, the company says they've identified only one ‘suspected gas depletion.’’
2. 1.2A floating mass of fallen trees, vegetation, ice, or other material.
   ‘Roses and cynipid galls occur along the banks of the Severn River above the tree line because of clay deposits, heat, and rafts of vegetation carried north by the river.’
   More example sentences

   • ‘These range from flimsy ‘floating meadows’ of intertwined grass to thick rafts of peatlike material that often support rooted trees and are likely to support nests as well.’
   • ‘Ground beetles and spiders likewise may be carried northward on rafts of vegetation.’
   • ‘There's a series of perfectly overhanging trees, some of which are partly submerged creating some enticing looking weed rafts and the bank would appear to be undercut too.’
   • ‘To my left, in the corner of the bay itself was a large raft of floating scum which stretched out some five yards or so, towards the island.’
   • ‘On large lakes near major access roads and rail lines, rafts of floating logs often made canoe travel impossible.’
   • ‘Water from the aquarium tanks is pumped over the top of rafts of brown algae, which feed on the nutrients in the water and help clean it naturally, as they would out on the reef.’
   • ‘Here ingenuity led to more advanced ways of growing food, by covering rafts of branches and roots with earth to create chinampas or floating gardens.’
   • ‘With all the flow and rafts of weed washing downstream it was very difficult keeping the bite alarms from bleeping continuously.’
   • ‘Rafts of weed can be commonplace drifting downstream, and they come to rest in many a slack, eddy or on any partly submerged structure.’
   • ‘They look just like the rafts of fragmented sea ice that lie off the coast of Antarctica on Earth.’
   • ‘You can take the train from Vancouver as far as Jasper - up past the vast rafts of logs on the icy, tumbling Fraser River and into the heart of the Rockies.’
   Synonyms

   group, quantity, lot, bunch, mass, cluster, raft, set, collection, bundle, series, number
3. 1.3A dense flock of swimming birds or mammals.
   ‘great rafts of cormorants, often 5,000 strong’
   More example sentences

   • ‘We saw hundreds, down to the detail of their banded beaks, as we coursed through the rafts of birds floating, I assume for comfort, till they comically bodysurfed and dived out of our way.’
   • ‘Although large rafts of these birds can be seen in the Atlantic in winter, Washington's wintering Red-necked Grebes are solitary.’
   • ‘From the porch, watch rafts of birds winter on the water below.’
   • ‘Responsible behaviour is also required on the surface as birds will be nesting on the cliffs and huge rafts of them will also be on the water.’
   • ‘This area affords excellent views of Burrard Inlet and rafts of offshore ducks.’
   • ‘Offshore, great rafts of the seabirds rise and fall slowly on lazy swells, their white heads glowing in the faint afternoon sun beneath an approaching line of dark clouds.’
   • ‘Outside of the breeding season, Greater Scaup form large flocks or rafts, numbering in the thousands.’
   • ‘We saw long tailed ducks - thousands of them, packed together in rafts hundreds of metres long.’
   • ‘At the end of the morning, we stood on a bank at the nature sanctuary overlooking a glassy cove with a distant raft of big black ducks.’
   • ‘Often found in large rafts outside the breeding season, Common Goldeneyes are frequent winter residents in Puget Sound and on large Washington rivers.’
4. 1.4A layer of reinforced concrete forming the foundation of a building.
   ‘But it provided a footprint for new foundations a concrete raft with built-in frost apron over a channel for cables and pipelines.’
   More example sentences

   • ‘Its foundations took the form of a concrete raft, whose design had been approved by the council on the recommendation of independent consulting engineers.’
   • ‘The nature of the ground would require the houses to be constructed on deep driven piles upon which concrete rafts would then be placed so as to provide strong foundations for the houses.’
   • ‘Beyond this load with further settlement of piled raft, the piles start carrying the load.’
   • ‘All these Figures show the effectiveness of the soil modulus in increasing the load carrying capacity of piled raft.’

1no object, with adverbial of direction Travel on or as if on a raft.

1. 1.1with object and adverbial of direction Transport on or as a raft.
   ‘the stores were rafted ashore’
   More example sentences

   • ‘I rafted 400 logs to my mill’
2. 1.2(of an ice floe) be driven on top of or underneath another floe.

2with object Bring or fasten together (a number of boats or other objects) side by side.

A large amount of something.