Rah

German

die Rahen eines Segelschiffs – the yards of a sailing ship

Alternative forms

• Rahe, Raa (latter archaic)

Etymology

In the nautical sense (17th c.) from Middle Low German râ, raa, from Proto-Germanic *rahō, *raihô.

The spellings in -h, -he may have been influenced by dialectal continuations of cognate Middle High German rahe (“pole, bar”), from Old High German raha; though the insertion of -h- in hiatus or at the end of a vocalic stem is also a general practice in German orthography. Further cognate with Dutch ra, Old Norse rá.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /raː/, [ʁaː]

• Audio

  (file)

• Homophone: rar (many speakers)

Noun

Rah f (genitive Rah, plural Rahen)

1. (nautical) yard (horizontal spar on the mast of a sailing ship)

Declension

Declension of Rah [feminine]

	singular			plural
	indef.	def.	noun	def.	noun
nominative	eine	die	Rah	die	Rahen
genitive	einer	der	Rah	der	Rahen
dative	einer	der	Rah	den	Rahen
accusative	eine	die	Rah	die	Rahen

Hypernyms

• Querstange

Derived terms

• Rahsegel

Further reading

• “Rah” in Digitales Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache
• “Rah” in Duden online