n. An implement of wood or iron, or partly of both, with teeth or tines for drawing or scraping things together, evening a surface of loose materials, etc.n. An instrument of similar form and use with a blade instead of teeth, either entire, as a gamblers' or a maltsters' rake, or notched so as to form teeth, as a furriers' rake. See the quotations.To gather, clear, smooth, or stir with or as if with a rake; treat with a rake, or something that serves the same purpose: as, to rake up hay; to rake a bed in a garden; to rake the fire with a poker or raker.To collect as if by the use of a rake; gather assiduously or laboriously; draw or scrape together, up, or in.To make minute search in, as if with a rake; look over or through carefully; ransack: as, to rake all history for examples.To pass along with or as if with a scraping motion; impinge lightly upon in moving; hence, to pass over swiftly; scour.Milit., to fire upon, as a ship, so that the shot will pass lengthwise along the deck; fire in the direction of the length of, as a file of soldiers or a parapet; enfilade.To cover with earth raked together; bury. See to rake up, below.To draw from oblivion or obscurity, as something forgotten or abandoned; bring to renewed attention; resuscitate; revive: used in a more or less opprobrious sense: as, to rake up a forgotten quarrel.To use a rake; work with a rake, especially in drawing together hay or grain.To make search with or as if with a rake; seek diligently for something; pry; peer here and there.n. A course, way, road, or path.To take a course; move; go; proceed.In hunting:Of a hawk, to range wildly; fly wide of the game.Of a dog, to follow a wrong course. See the quotation.To incline from the perpendicular or the horizontal, as the mast, stem, or stern of a ship, the rafters of a roof, the end of a tool, etc. See the noun.To give a rake to; cause to incline or slope.n. Inclination or slope away from a perpendicular or a horizontal line.n. In coal-mining, a series of thin layers of ironstone lying so near each other that they can all be worked together.n. An idle, dissolute person; one who goes about in search of vicious pleasure; a libertine; an idle person of fashion.To play the part of a rake; lead a dissolute, debauched life; practise lewdness.n. A lean, meager person.n. A local miners' term in Derbyshire, England, for veins of galena in joints in limestone, as contrasted with fault-fissures. The joints are often enlarged by the solution and removal of the walls, but they may be and usually are limited or cut off sharply by an underlying stratum. Also written rake-vein. Compare gash-vein.In turpentining, to clear combustible material away from (the base of a tree), as a precaution against fire.In salt-making, to remove the salt from (the evaporating-pans) to the draining-table.