radeau

English

Etymology

Borrowed from French radeau.

Noun

radeau (plural radeaus or radeaux)

1. A float; a raft.
   • 1859, Washington Irving, Life of Washington:

     Then three vessels under sail, and one at anchor, above Split Rock, and behind it the radeau Thunderer, noted in the last year's naval fight.

Anagrams

• auraed

French

Etymology

Borrowed from Old Occitan radel, a diminutive of rat, itself from Latin ratis (“raft”).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ʁa.do/

• Audio:

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• Audio (France (Somain)):

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Noun

radeau m (plural radeaux)

1. raft
   • 1943, Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, chapter II, in Le petit prince [The Little Prince], New York: Reynal & Hitchcock, page 8:

     J'étais bien plus isolé qu’un naufragé sur un radeau au milieu de l'Océan.

     I was more isolated than a castaway on a raft in the middle of the Ocean.

   • 1964, “Les copains d'abord”, performed by Georges Brassens:

     Non, ce n'était pas le radeau / De la Méduse, ce bateau / Qu'on se le dise au fond des ports / Dise au fond des ports / Il naviguait en père peinard / Sur la grand-mare des canards / Et s'app'lait les Copains d'abord

     (please add an English translation of this quotation)

Descendants

• Mauritian Creole: rado
• Réunion Creole French: rado
• → English: radeau
• → Greek: ραντό (rantó) (Egyptiot Dialect)

Further reading

• “radeau”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012