{Raking course} (Bricklaying), a course of bricks laid
diagonally between the face courses in a thick wall, to
strengthen.
An illiterate and frivolous old rake. --Macaulay.
2. A toothed machine drawn by a horse, -- used for collecting
hay or grain; a horserake.
3. [Perhaps a different word.] (Mining) A fissure or mineral
vein traversing the strata vertically, or nearly so; --
called also {rake-vein}.
{Gill rakes}. (Anat.) See under 1st {Gill}.
One is for raking in Chaucer for antiquated words.
--Dryden.
2. To pass with violence or rapidity; to scrape along.
Pas could not stay, but over him did rake. --Sir P.
Sidney.
2. Hence: To collect or draw together with laborious
industry; to gather from a wide space; to scrape together;
as, to rake together wealth; to rake together slanderous
tales; to rake together the rabble of a town.
3. To pass a rake over; to scrape or scratch with a rake for
the purpose of collecting and clearing off something, or
for stirring up the soil; as, to rake a lawn; to rake a
flower bed.
4. To search through; to scour; to ransack.
The statesman rakes the town to find a plot.
--Swift.
5. To scrape or scratch across; to pass over quickly and
lightly, as a rake does.
Like clouds that rake the mountain summits.
--Wordsworth.
6. (Mil.) To enfilade; to fire in a direction with the length
of; in naval engagements, to cannonade, as a ship, on the
stern or head so that the balls range the whole length of
the deck.
{To rake up}.
(a) To collect together, as the fire (live coals), and
cover with ashes.
(b) To bring up; to search out an bring to notice again;
as, to rake up old scandals.
2. [See {Rake} a debauchee.] To act the rake; to lead a
dissolute, debauched life. --Shenstone.
{To rake out} (Falconry), to fly too far and wide from its
master while hovering above waiting till the game is
sprung; -- said of the hawk. --Encyc. Brit.