Raft vs Ferry - What's the difference?
raft | ferry |
A flat structure made of planks, barrels etc., that floats on water, and is used for transport, emergencies or a platform for swimmers.
A flat-bottomed inflatable craft for floating or drifting on water.
A thick crowd of seabirds or sea mammals.
(US) A collection of logs, fallen trees, etc. which obstructs navigation in a river.
(slang, informal) A large collection of people or things taken indiscriminately.
* W. D. Howells
A large (but unspecified) number, a lot.
* 2007 , Edwin Mullins, The Popes of Avignon , Blue Bridge 2008, p. 31:
(reave)
A ship used to transport people, smaller vehicles and goods from one port to another, usually on a regular schedule.
A place where passengers are transported across water in such a ship.
* Milton
* Campbell
* around 1900 , O. Henry,
The legal right or franchise that entitles a corporate body or an individual to operate such a service.
To carry; transport; convey.
* 2007 , Rick Bass, The Lives of Rocks :
To move someone or something from one place to another, usually repeatedly.
* {{quote-magazine, date=2013-06-01, volume=407, issue=8838
, page=13 (Technology Quarterly), magazine=(The Economist)
, title= To carry or transport over a contracted body of water, as a river or strait, in a boat or other floating conveyance plying between opposite shores.
To pass over water in a boat or by ferry.
* Milton
Ferry is a hyponym of raft.
In transitive terms the difference between raft and ferry
is that raft is to make into a raft while ferry is to carry or transport over a contracted body of water, as a river or strait, in a boat or other floating conveyance plying between opposite shores.In intransitive terms the difference between raft and ferry
is that raft is to travel by raft while ferry is to pass over water in a boat or by ferry.raft
English
(wikipedia raft)Etymology 1
From Scandinavian; compare West (etyl) .Noun
(en noun)- a whole raft of folks
Derived terms
* life raftEtymology 2
Alteration of (raff).Noun
(en noun)- Among those arrested was the grand master himself, Jacques de Molay, who found himself facing a raft of charges based on the specious evidence of former knights [...].
Etymology 3
Verb
(head)- (Spenser)
Anagrams
* * * * ----ferry
English
Noun
(ferries)- It can pass the ferry backward into light.
- to row me o'er the ferry
- She walked into the waiting-room of the ferry , and up the stairs, and by a marvellous swift, little run, caught the ferry-boat that was just going out.
Derived terms
* ferry bridge * ferry railwayDescendants
* French: (l) * Malay: (l) * Swahili: (l)Verb
(en-verb)- We ferried our stock in U-Haul trailers, and across the months, as we purchased more cowflesh from the Goat Man — meat vanishing into the ether again and again, as if into some quarkish void — we became familiar enough with Sloat and his daughter to learn that her name was Flozelle, and to visit with them about matters other than stock.
Ideas coming down the track, passage=A “moving platform” scheme
- They ferry over this Lethean sound / Both to and fro.
