dray

See also: Dray

English

Pronunciation

• enPR: drā, IPA^(key): /dɹeɪ/

  • Audio (Southern England):

    (file)

• Rhymes: -eɪ

Etymology 1

From Middle English draye, dreye, from Old English dræġe (“dragnet”), from Proto-Germanic *dragǭ. Cognate with Middle Low German drāge (“stretcher; dray”), Middle High German trage (“a litter”). Related to Old English dragan (“to pull; draw”). More at draw.

Noun

dray (plural drays)

1. (historical) Any of various forms of low horse-drawn cart or wagon, often without sides or with removable sides, and used especially for heavy loads.
   • 1710 September 28, Joseph Addison, Whig-Examiner:

     Let him be brought into the field of election upon his dray-cart.

   • 1900, Charles W[addell] Chesnutt, chapter I, in The House Behind the Cedars, Boston, Mass.; New York, N.Y.: Houghton, Mifflin and Company […], →OCLC:

     Standing foursquare in the heart of the town, at the intersection of the two main streets, a “jog” at each street corner left around the market-house a little public square, which at this hour was well occupied by carts and wagons from the country and empty drays awaiting hire

   • 1915, Virginia Woolf, The Voyage Out, London: Duckworth & Co., […], →OCLC:

     The shooting motor cars, more like spiders in the moon than terrestrial objects, the thundering drays, the jingling hansoms, and little black broughams, made her think of the world she lived in.

2. A kind of sledge or sled.

Coordinate terms

• dumpcart
• galamander
• stoneboat
• tumbril

Derived terms

• dragnet
• drayage
• drayful
• drayhorse
• drayload
• drayman
• drayperson
• draywoman

Translations

horse-drawn cart

Bashkir: арба (arba) Bulgarian: каруца (bg) f (karuca) Chinese: Mandarin: 運貨馬車 / 运货马车 (zh) (yùnhuò mǎchē) Czech: valník (cs) m Finnish: rattaat (fi) Galician: carreta f Irish: drae m Italian: carro (it) m, carretta (it) f Maori: terei Norwegian: Bokmål: drog (no) m or n Portuguese: carroça (pt) f Russian: теле́га (ru) f (teléga), воз (ru) m (voz) Spanish: carreta (es) f, carretón (es) m Swedish: drög (sv) c Welsh: car (cy) m, cart (cy) m

See also

• flatbed
• stakebody

Verb

dray (third-person singular simple present drays, present participle draying, simple past and past participle drayed)

1. (transitive) To convey (goods) by dray.

Etymology 2

Unknown.

Noun

dray (plural drays)

1. Alternative spelling of drey (“squirrel's nest”).

References

• “dray”, in OneLook Dictionary Search.
• William Dwight Whitney, Benjamin E[li] Smith, editors (1911), “dray”, in The Century Dictionary […], New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., →OCLC.

Anagrams

• Rady, yard, Dyar, R-Day, Yard, adry

Sranan Tongo

Verb

dray

1. alternative spelling of drai