raff

plural raffs

1. countabledateduncountableA disorderly heap; a jumble; a large quantity

   A raff of errors.

   1680, Isaac Barrow, A Discourse Concerning The Unity Of The Church

   1 more example

   Bowditch and I (with a raff of books) left town about five in the morning.

   1825 September 2, Charles Francis Barnard, diary entry

2. countabledateduncountablelumber or refuse.

   [a hut] was fashioned of the raff of the slough—dead fronds, rotting branches, withered marsh grasses. Its sad gray-green were in the living wilderness like a monument to death.

   1923, Joel Townsley Rogers, Weird Tales, Hark! The Rattle!

   Synonyms: flotsam

3. pluraluncountableThe common rabble or mob; riffraff.

   Jostling with unemployed labourers of the lowest class, ballast-heavers, coal-whippers, brazen women, ragged children, and the raff and refuse of the river, he makes his way with difficulty along […]

   1839, Charles Dickens, Oliver Twist

4. countabledateduncountableA common, crass or low-standing person. Alternatively, a snob.

   English raffs of every description

   1860 June 30, Charles Dickens, All the Year Round

   1 more example

   There is no town of any mark in Europe but it has its little colony of English raffs—men whose names Mr. Hemp the officer reads out periodically at the Sheriffs' Court—young gentlemen of very good family often, only that the latter disowns them; frequenters of billiard-rooms and estaminets, patrons of foreign races and gaming-tables.

   1847 January – 1848 July, William Makepeace Thackeray, chapter 64, in Vanity Fair […], London: Bradbury and Evans […], published 1848, →OCLC

   Synonyms: churl

present singular third person raffs · participle present raffing · participle past raffed · past raffed

1. datedTo sweep, blow, snatch, draw, or huddle together; to sweep up.

   Causes and effects which I thus raffe up together.

   1609, Richard Carew, The Survey of Cornwall, London: […] S[imon] S[tafford] for Iohn Iaggard, […], →OCLC

   2 more examples

   they felt no effect of the storm which was raffing at Madrass

   1861, Robert Orme, A History of the Military Transactions of the British Nation in Indostan/Volume 1/Book 1

   the summer wind flows aloft through the tree-tops, or raffs the last year's leaves in the pits between the gnarled roots

   1898 June 2, The Independent (New York City), We Will Make Holiday

plural raffs · alternative raffe · alternative raffie

1. nauticalA three-cornered sail set on a schooner when before the wind.

plural Raffs

1. A surname.
2. UKslangThe RAF (Royal Air Force).

   in the Raff

3. A nickname for Raphael or similar sounding names.