rafter

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ˈɹɑːftə(ɹ)/
• (Canada, General American) IPA^(key): /ˈɹæftəɹ/

• Audio (Southern England):

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ɑːftə(ɹ), -æftə(ɹ)

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

rafter (plural rafters)

1. (architecture) One of a series of sloped beams that extend from the ridge or hip to the downslope perimeter or eave, designed to support the roof deck and its associated loads.
   • 1943 November – 1944 February (date written; published 1945 August 17), George Orwell [pseudonym; Eric Arthur Blair], Animal Farm […], London: Secker & Warburg, published May 1962, →OCLC:

     […] the pigeons fluttered up to the rafters

2. (collective) A flock of turkeys.

• jack rafter
• packed to the rafters
• rafter snapper
• valley rafter

rafter (third-person singular simple present rafters, present participle raftering, simple past and past participle raftered)

1. (transitive) To make (timber, etc.) into rafters.
2. (transitive) To furnish (a building) with rafters.
3. (UK, agriculture) To plough so as to turn the grass side of each furrow upon an unploughed ridge; to ridge.

• “rafter”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.

From raft +‎ -er.

rafter (plural rafters)

1. This term needs a definition. Please help out and add a definition, then remove the text {{rfdef}}.
2. A raftsman.

• Frater, farter, frater