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PlainSpell

raffle

/ˈɹæfl̩/noun, verb

raffle is a noun meaning “A drawing, often held as a fundraiser, in which tickets or chances are sold to win a prize” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). It is spelled R-A-F-F-L-E and has 2 syllables, and it appears 1.5 times per million words in written English (wordfreq, 2021 data). The plural of raffle is raffles.

What does raffle mean?

noun

  1. 1

    A drawing, often held as a fundraiser, in which tickets or chances are sold to win a prize.

    He entered a raffle to win a lifetime supply of toothpaste, but he did not win.

  2. 2

    obsoleteA game of dice in which the player who throws three of the same number wins all the stakes.

  3. 3

    The system by which cases are assigned to judges in multi-sala courts.

  4. 4

    datedRefuse; rubbish.

    the oversurviving raffle of half-green things which the gentle winter has suffered to live

verb

  1. 1

    To award something by means of a raffle or random drawing.

    They raffled off four gift baskets.

  2. 2

    To participate in a raffle.

    to raffle for a watch

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

How do you pronounce raffle?

  • /ˈɹæfl̩/

Raffle has 2 syllables (counted from its American pronunciation in the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary).

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: En-us-raffle.ogg, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).

Forms of raffle

  • raffles plural, present, singular, he/she/it
  • raffling participle, present
  • raffled participle, past

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

How common is raffle?

Raffle appears 1.5 times per million words in written English, the 22,651st 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).

Raffle in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese

LanguageWords
Frenchtombola (drawing), mettre en tombola (to award by means of a raffle)
GermanTombola, Verlosung (drawing), verlosen (to award by means of a raffle)
Portugueserifa (drawing), rifar (to award by means of a raffle)
Spanishrifa, mita (drawing), rifar, quintar (to award by means of a raffle)

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 raffle come from?

From Middle English rafle, from Old French rafle, raffle (“dice game", also "plundering”), from rafler (“to snatch, seize, carry off”), from Frankish *raffolōn, from Proto-Germanic *hrapōną, *hrēpōną (“to scratch, touch, pluck out, snatch”), from Proto-Indo-European *(s)kreb(h)-, *(s)kerb(h)- (“to turn, bend, shrink”), from Proto-Indo-European *(s)ker- (“to turn, bend”). Cognate with Middle Dutch raffel (“dice game”), German raffen (“to snatch away, sweep off”), Old English hreppan (“to touch, treat, attack”).

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