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rafter

raft·er/ˈɹæftɚ/noun, verb

rafter is a noun meaning “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…” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). It is spelled R-A-F-T-E-R and has 2 syllables (raft·er), and it appears about once in every 3 million words in written English (wordfreq, 2021 data). The plural of rafter is rafters.

What does rafter mean?

noun

  1. 1

    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.

  2. 2

    A flock of turkeys.

  3. 3

    A raftsman.

verb

  1. 1

    To make (timber, etc.) into rafters.

  2. 2

    To furnish (a building) with rafters.

  3. 3

    UKTo plough so as to turn the grass side of each furrow upon an unploughed ridge; to ridge.

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

How do you pronounce rafter?

  • UK /ˈɹɑːftəː/
  • UK [ˈɹʷɑːftəː]
  • US /ˈɹæftɚ/

Rafter has 2 syllables, split raft·er in writing.

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: LL-Q1860_(eng)-Vealhurl-rafter.wav, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).

Forms of rafter

  • rafters plural, present, singular, he/she/it
  • raftering participle, present
  • raftered participle, past

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

How common is rafter?

Rafter appears about once in every 3 million words in written English, the 49,368th most frequent word form in the list.

Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).

Rafter in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese

In the sense one of a series of sloped beams:

LanguageWords
Frenchchevron
GermanSparren
Portuguesecaibro, viga, trave
Spanishviga, jácena

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Translations are Wiktionary's, by sense; a linked word has its own PlainSpell page.

Where does rafter come from?

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

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).