rake

rake¹ toothed tool

Etymology

The tool is inherited from Middle English rake,^[5][6] inherited from Old English raca, also racu and earlier ræce,^[7][8][3][2] from Proto-Germanic *rak- (“gather, heap up”).^[8][1][3] It is cognate with Middle Dutch rāke, Old High German rehho (modern German Rechen), Old Norse reka (“spade, shovel”) and Gothic 𐍂𐌹𐌺𐌰𐌽 (rikan, “to heap up”).^[7][8][3][2] Etymonline traces it to Proto-Indo-European *reg- (“to move in a straight line”), the root of right,^[8][1][9] and Merriam-Webster and Barnhart compare Ancient Greek ὀρέγω (orégō, “to stretch out”).^[2][3] The verb is raken, partly from the noun and partly borrowed from Old Norse raka (“to scrape, rake”).^{[7][3][9][10]}

Earliest recorded meaning

A toothed tool for drawing together hay or grass, or for levelling the ground: Old English, in the Corpus Glossary;^[7] Barnhart dates ræce before 800 and raca about 1000.^[3]

Semantic evolution

Already in Old English the word covered similar tools for other jobs,^[7] and later a croupier's tool for drawing in money at the gaming table.^[7][11] The phrase lean as a rake is in Chaucer's Canterbury Tales (about 1405 in the manuscript),^[7][5] and rake alone for a very thin person is in Skelton, before 1529.^[7] The verb, to gather with a rake, is recorded from before 1325 in Genesis and Exodus,^[7][3] and to rake in money or wealth from 1583.^[7][8] From the 1630s it was also used of gunfire sweeping a ship or a line of troops from end to end.^[8]

Timeline

• before 800 – ræce, a rake.^[3]
• Old English – a toothed implement for gathering hay or levelling ground.^[7]
• before 1325 – verb, to gather with a rake.^[7]
• c. 1405 – lean as a rake, in Chaucer.^[7]
• before 1529 – a very thin person.^[7]
• 1583 – to rake in money.^[7]
• 1630s – of gunfire, to sweep along.^[8]

Meanings

Noun

1. A garden tool with a row of teeth or prongs across the end of a long handle, used to gather leaves or grass or to smooth soil.^[2][11][7]
2. A farm machine with rows of teeth or tines for gathering hay or straw.^[11]
3. Any similar tool, such as a croupier's tool for moving chips, or one for drawing ashes from a furnace.^[11][7]
4. thin as a rake: very thin.^[7][5]

Verb

1. To gather, collect or smooth with a rake: He raked the cut grass into piles.^[2][7]
2. To search through something carefully: She raked through the drawer for her passport.^[2][7]
3. To sweep a ship, troops or a position with gunfire along its length; to enfilade.^[8][2]
4. rake in: to gain money in large amounts.^[7][8]

Word family

• raker
• rake-off
• muckrake

rake² slant, inclination

Etymology

The slant is of unknown or uncertain origin.^[2][7][9][3] The noun comes from the verb, to slope.^[7][9][3] Several dictionaries suggest a link with Middle High German ragen (“to project”) (modern German ragen),^{[7][1][10][12]} and Barnhart compares Swedish raka (“to project, reach”) and Danish rage (“to protrude”), forms that may themselves come from German.^[3][11]

Earliest recorded meaning

Of a ship's hull or timbers, to project at the bow or stern: about 1514, in measurements for a ship in the State Papers of Henry VIII.^[7] The noun, the overhang of the hull at bow and stern beyond the keel, is recorded from before 1621, in William Strachey;^[7] Barnhart dates the noun 1626 and the verb 1627.^[3]

Semantic evolution

The word began as a shipbuilders' term for the overhang of the hull at bow and stern.^[7][3] From before 1687 it was used of masts or funnels leaning back from the vertical,^[7] and since 1722 of any slope.^[7] In the 19th century it was applied to the slope of a theatre stage or auditorium (1802) and to the angle of a cutting tool (1888).^[7][2] The adjective rakish, first suggested by the backward-leaning masts of fast sailing ships, was later linked to rake the dissolute man.^[1][9]

Timeline

• c. 1514 – verb, of a ship, to have a rake at bow or stern.^[7]
• before 1621 – noun, the overhang of a ship's hull.^[7]
• before 1687 – of a mast or funnel, to lean back.^[7]
• 1722 – to slope.^[7]
• 1802 – the slope of a stage or auditorium.^[7]
• 1888 – the angle of a cutting tool.^[7]

Meanings

Noun

1. A slant away from the vertical, as of a ship's mast or funnel, or the overhang of a ship's bow or stern.^[2][7]
2. A slope from the horizontal, as of a theatre stage or auditorium.^[2][7]
3. The angle between the cutting face of a tool and a line perpendicular to the work.^[2][7]

Verb

1. To lean or slope away from the vertical: The masts raked sharply aft.^[2][7]
2. To give a slope to something.^[2][7]

rake³ dissolute man

Etymology

The dissolute man is a clipping from English rakehell.^{[7][8][2][3][9]} Rakehell (1554) is perhaps an alteration, by association with the tool and with hell, of Middle English rakel (“hasty, rash, headstrong”),^[3][8][2] probably from raken (“to go, proceed”), from Old English racian (“to go forward, hasten”).^[8][3] The OED instead takes it from the phrase “to rake hell”.^[7]

Earliest recorded meaning

A dissolute or immoral man: 1653, in Henry More's An Antidote Against Atheism, according to Barnhart;^[3] the OED's first record is from 1693,^[7] and Merriam-Webster dates it about 1687.^[2]

Semantic evolution

The word was used of fashionable men of loose or dissolute life,^[7][8] and by 1710–12 also of women of the same character.^[7][8] Hogarth's engravings A Rake's Progress were published in 1735.^[8] A verb, to live as a rake, is recorded from 1700,^[7][2] and the adjective rakish from the 18th century.^[9]

Timeline

• 1554 – rakehell, the fuller form.^[3]
• 1653 – a dissolute man.^[3]
• 1693 – a fashionable man of dissolute habits.^[7]
• 1700 – verb, to live as a rake.^[7]
• 1710 – a woman of similar character.^[7]
• 1735 – Hogarth's A Rake's Progress.^[8]

Meanings

Noun

1. A man, usually a fashionable one, who lives a dissolute or immoral life; a libertine: In the novel the young rake gambles away his estate.^[2][7][11]

Verb

1. (rare) To live like a rake.^[2][7]

Word family

• rakish