reft

English

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ɹɛft/
• Rhymes: -ɛft

Verb

reft

1. simple past and past participle of reave

Noun

reft (plural refts)

1. A chink; a rift.
   • c. 1360s (date written)​, Geffray Chaucer [i.e., Geoffrey Chaucer], “The Romaunt of the Rose”, in [William Thynne], editor, The Workes of Geffray Chaucer Newlye Printed, […], [London: […] Richard Grafton for] Iohn Reynes […], published 1542, →OCLC:

     If thou mayest finde any shore,
     Or hole , or reft , what ever it were

     (please add an English translation of this quotation)

   • 1870, Dr. Bence Jones, chapter II, in The Life and Letters of Faraday‎^[1], volume II, Philadelphia: J.B. Lippincott & Co., page 146:

     At one time the summit was beautifully bathed in golden light, whilst the middle part was quite blue, and the snow of its peculiar blue-green colour in the refts. Some of the glaciers are very distinct to us, and with the telescope I can see the refts and corrugations of the different parts, and the edges from which avalanches have fallen […]

   • 1894, Ivan Dexter, Talmud: A Strange Narrative of Central Australia, published in serial form in Port Adelaide News and Lefevre's Peninsula Advertiser (SA), Chapter VII, [2]

     Now and again through a reft in the smoke a gleam of sunshine could be seen striking the rocks on the great peak to the west, but it had little or no effect in the gorge.

References

“reft”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.

Anagrams

• FRET, TERF, fret, terf, tref