on a railway. [U.S.] — Railway carriage, a railway passenger car. [Eng.] — Railway scale, a platform
scale bearing a track which forms part of the line of a railway, for weighing loaded cars. — Railway
slide. See Transfer table, under Transfer. — Railway spine (Med.), an abnormal condition due to
severe concussion of the spinal cord, such as occurs in railroad accidents. It is characterized by ataxia
and other disturbances of muscular function, sensory disorders, pain in the back, impairment of general
health, and cerebral disturbance, — the symptoms often not developing till some months after the injury.
— Underground railroad or railway. (a) A railroad or railway running through a tunnel, as beneath
the streets of a city. (b) Formerly, a system of coöperation among certain active antislavery people in
the United States, by which fugitive slaves were secretly helped to reach Canada. [In the latter sense
railroad, and not railway, was used.] "Their house was a principal entrepôt of the underground railroad."
W. D. Howells.
Railroading
(Rail"road`ing), n. The construction of a railroad; the business of managing or operating a
railroad. [Colloq. U. S.]
Raiment
(Rai"ment) n. [Abbrev. fr. arraiment. See Array.]
1. Clothing in general; vesture; garments; — usually singular in form, with a collective sense.
Living, both food and raiment she supplies.
Dryden. 2. An article of dress. [R. or Obs.] Sir P. Sidney.
Rain
(Rain) n. & v. Reign. [Obs.] Spenser.
Rain
(Rain) n. [OE. rein, AS. regen; akin to OFries. rein, D. & G. regen, OS. & OHG. regan, Icel.,
Dan., & Sw. regn, Goth. rign, and prob. to L. rigare to water, to wet; cf. Gr. bre`chein to wet, to
rain.] Water falling in drops from the clouds; the descent of water from the clouds in drops.
Rain is water by the heat of the sun divided into very small parts ascending in the air, till, encountering
the cold, it be condensed into clouds, and descends in drops.
Ray.
Fair days have oft contracted wind and rain.
Milton. Rain is distinguished from mist by the size of the drops, which are distinctly visible. When water falls in
very small drops or particles, it is called mist; and fog is composed of particles so fine as to be not only
individually indistinguishable, but to float or be suspended in the air. See Fog, and Mist.
Rain band (Meteorol.), a dark band in the yellow portion of the solar spectrum near the sodium line,
caused by the presence of watery vapor in the atmosphere, and hence sometimes used in weather
predictions. — Rain bird (Zoöl.), the yaffle, or green woodpecker. [Prov. Eng.] The name is also applied
to various other birds, as to Saurothera vetula of the West Indies. — Rain fowl (Zoöl.), the channel-
bill cuckoo (Scythrops Novæ-Hollandiæ) of Australia. — Rain gauge, an instrument of various forms for
measuring the quantity of rain that falls at any given place in a given time; a pluviometer; an ombrometer.
— Rain goose (Zoöl.), the red-throated diver, or loon. [Prov. Eng.] — Rain prints (Geol.), markings
on the surfaces of stratified rocks, presenting an appearance similar to those made by rain on mud and
sand, and believed to have been so produced. — Rain quail. (Zoöl.) See Quail, n., 1. — Rain water,
water that has fallen from the clouds in rain.
Rain
(Rain), v. i. [imp. & p. p. Rained (rand); p. pr. & vb. n. Raining.] [AS. regnian, akin to G.
regnen, Goth. rignjan. See Rain, n.]
1. To fall in drops from the clouds, as water; — used mostly with it for a nominative; as, it rains.
The rain it raineth every day.
Shak.
