rail
n. C / Un. a bar or a system of bars used for support or as a track. You might hold onto one for safety on a staircase or see trains traveling on them.
n. a horizontal or sloping bar or series of bars used as a support, barrier, or track. Often used collectively to refer to the railway system as a mode of transport.
Please hold the rail while you walk down the stairs.
The government is investing more money into rail to reduce the number of cars on the highway.
The expansion of the national rail network during the nineteenth century fundamentally altered the economic landscape by allowing goods to be transported across vast distances in record time.
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.
From French râle, rale, from Middle French raalle, from Old French rasle. Compare Medieval Latin rallus. Named from its harsh cry, Vulgar Latin *rasculum, from Latin rādere (“to scrape”).
From Middle French railler.
From Middle English rail, reil, from Old English hræġl (“garment, dress, robe”). Cognate with Old Frisian hreil, reil, Old Saxon hregil, Old High German hregil (“clothing, garment, dress”).
Probably from Anglo-Norman raier, Middle French raier.
Uncountable when referring to the transport system ('by rail'); countable when referring to a physical bar or track.
I am going by the railI am going by railWhen referring to the transport system using 'by', the noun is uncountable and does not take an article.
- 01
put the bottom rail on top
To reverse a hierarchy.
- 02
ride on a rail
To be subjected to a punishment most prevalent in the United States in the 18th and 19th centuries in which an offender was made to straddle a fence rail held on the shoulders of two or more bearers. The victim was then paraded around town or taken to the city limits and dumped by the roadside.