rail
Part of speech: noun
verb
Morphological type: simple
Topics: backgammon
business
drugs
electrical-engineering
electricity
electromagnetism
electronics
energy
engineering
games
hobbies
lifestyle
medicine
natural-sciences
pharmacology
physical-sciences
physics
rail-transport
railways
sciences
sports
surfing
transport
Etymology: From Middle English rail, rayl, *reȝel, *reȝol (found in reȝolsticke (“a ruler”)), partly from Old English regol (“a ruler, straight bar”) and partly from Old French reille; both from Latin regula (“rule, bar”), from regō (“to rule, to guide, to govern”); see regular. Doublet of regal, regula, rigol, and rule.
Inflected forms:
form: rails
pos: noun
tags: plural
form: rails
pos: verb
tags: present
singular
third-person
form: railing
pos: verb
tags: participle
present
form: railed
pos: verb
tags: participle
past
form: railed
pos: verb
tags: past
Senses:
gloss: A horizontal bar extending between supports and used for support or as a barrier; a railing.
pos: noun
examples: Old Applegate, in the stern, just set and looked at me, and Lord James, amidship, waved both arms and kept hollering for help. I took a couple of everlasting big strokes and managed to grab hold of the skiff's rail, close to the stern.
gloss: The metal bar forming part of the track for a railroad.
pos: noun
examples: A "moving platform" scheme[…]is more technologically ambitious than maglev trains even though it relies on conventional rails. Local trains would use side-by-side rails to roll alongside intercity trains and allow passengers to switch trains by stepping through docking bays.
gloss: A railroad; a railway, as a means of transportation.
pos: noun
examples: We travelled to the seaside by rail.
a small Scottish village not accessible by rail
rail transport
It is impossible not to share the mood of excitement, of self-confidence, of pride, which seized those who lived through this heroic age of the engineers, as the railway first linked Channel and Mediterranean, as it became possible to travel by rail to Seville, to Moscow, to Brindisi, as the iron tracks pushed westwards across the North American prairies and mountains and across the Indian sub-continent in the 1860s, up the Nile valley, and into the hinterlands of Latin America in the 1870s.
gloss: A conductor maintained at a fixed electrical potential relative to ground, to which other circuit components are connected.
pos: noun
examples: ISA devices draw power from the +5 V, −5 V, +12 V, and −12 V rails of the power supply unit.
There has been another, fairly gradual change in the ATX specification: Initially a lot of power was supplied on the 5V and 3.3V rails, but over time more and more power shifted to 12V because it's more efficient. Modern (ATX12V 2.x) PSUs supply most of their power on the 12V rail and not a lot on the 5V rail, which means a modern PSU may not be able to supply an old board, unless it's a really beefy PSU—because providing 500W on the 12V rail is of very little use to an AT or early ATX system.
gloss: A horizontal piece of wood that serves to separate sections of a door or window.
pos: noun
gloss: One of the lengthwise edges of a surfboard.
pos: noun
examples: Rails alone can only ever have a marginal effect on a board's general turning ability.
gloss: A vertical section on one side of a web page.
pos: noun
tags: Internet
examples: We're experimenting with ads in the right-hand rail.
gloss: A large line (portion or serving of a powdery illegal drug).
pos: noun
examples: Do a couple rails and chase your own tail
gloss: Each of two vertical side bars supporting the rungs of a ladder.
pos: noun
gloss: The raised edge of the game board.
pos: noun
gloss: To travel by railway.
pos: verb
tags: intransitive
examples: Mottram of the Indian Survey had ridden thirty and railed one hundred miles from his lonely post in the desert […]
gloss: To place on a track.
pos: verb
tags: transitive
gloss: To enclose with rails or a railing.
pos: verb
tags: transitive
examples: They ought to rail off the playground.
It ought to be fenced in and railed.
gloss: To range in a line.
pos: verb
tags: transitive
examples: They were brought to London all railed in ropes, like a team of horses in a cart.
gloss: To sexually penetrate in a rough manner.
pos: verb
tags: slang
transitive
vulgar
gloss: To snort a line of powdered drugs.
pos: verb
tags: slang
transitive
examples: All I can think about is being seventeen days sober and desperate to rail a line of blow after last night's group outing to see Sofia Coppola's The Bling Ring (at my request), which, in hindsight, was a fucking dumb thing for a rehab to approve of.
Derived words: anti-rail
antirail
bedrail
bow rail
breastrail
bullhead rail
bullrail
by rail
cant rail
cantrail
chair rail
check rail
cograil
common rail
commuter rail
conductor rail
crossrail
dado rail
edge rail
enrail
false rail
fife-rail
flanged T rail
flat rail
fly rail
footrail
fourth rail
frame rail
framerail
grab rail
grabrail
ground rail
guardrail
guiderail
guide rail
handrail
hanging rail
hatrail
headrail
heavy rail
higher-speed rail
high-speed rail
hi-rail
hitching rail
hitchrail
hollow rail
hot rail
hydrail
inrail
interrail
K-rail
landrail
light rail
live rail
loot rail
midrail
monkey rail
monorail
motorail
Network Rail
non-rail
nonrail
on rails
on the rail
on the rails
pedrail
Picatinny rail
picture rail
power rail
pro-rail
put the bottom rail on top
railage
rail anchor
rail and stile
railbank
rail-based
railbed
railbike
railborne
railbound
rail brake
railbuff
railbus
railcar
railcard
rail-carriage
rail drink
railer
railfan
railfanning
rail fare
railfare
rail fence cipher
rail fly
rail freight
railful
rail gauge
rail grab
rail grinder
railgun
rail hail
rail head
railhead
rail joint
railjoint
railless
rail line
rail liquor
railman
railmotor
rail-motor
rail motor
rail replacement service
railroad
rail roko
rail saver
rail-served
rail shooter
railside
rail spike
rail terminal
rail-thin
railtour
rail tour
rail track
rail trail
rail train
rail transport
rail turn
rail vehicle
rail wagon
railway
railwoman
railworks
rail yard
ride on a rail
ride the rail
ride the rails
road-rail
road-rail vehicle
running rail
sand rail
seat rail
shower rail
side rail
skateboard rail
skinny as a rail
sliprail
split rail
split rail fence
strap rail
thin as a rail
third rail
tilt rail
toprail
towel rail
tramrail
tram rail
ultra light rail
Vignoles rail
Virginia rail fence
wing rail
derail
rerail
unrail
Translations: