dray

plural drays

1. historicalAny of various forms of low horse-drawn cart or wagon, often without sides or with removable sides, and used especially for heavy loads.

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

   1710 September 28, Joseph Addison, Whig-Examiner

   3 more examples

   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

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

   ‘I’ve seen him take things and lift them into a dray - things that - that - that - well, that you and me together couldn’t lift an inch!’

   1911, ‘Steel Rudd’, The Book of Dan, Brisbane: University of Queensland Press, published 1970, page 84

   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.

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

2. A kind of sledge or sled.

present singular third person drays · participle present draying · participle past drayed · past drayed

1. transitiveTo convey (goods) by dray.

plural drays

1. alternativeAlternative spelling of drey (“squirrel's nest”).
2. collectiverareA group of squirrels.

   Among the squirrels that do not form a group, one squirrel with brave leadership took command of the squirrels and formed a dray.

   (Can we date this quote?), 不人-Huhito, Huhito Fables Vol.13

   2 more examples

   He told how the herons always came at St. Valentine's to Felborough Wood and Chilham, and how the terns came in screaming gaggles when September was ending, and where the squirrels' drays were mostly found, and where he had seen a cete of badgers.

   1927, Alfred Tresidder Sheppard, Here Comes an Old Sailor, page 246

   You can imagine that families and extended families who nurtured the offspring of their family, i.e. their tribe, barrel, pod (whales), or dray (squirrels) do better, i.e. have more healthier offspring who go on to produce more offspring——children and grandchildren—than those who don't nurture so well.

   2014, Bill Nye, Undeniable: Evolution and the Science of Creation, St. Martin's Publishing Group, page 221

plural Drays

1. A surname.