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Raffle   Listen
noun
Raffle  n.  
1.
A kind of lottery, in which several persons pay, in shares, the value of something put up as a stake, and then determine by chance (as by casting dice) which one of them shall become the sole possessor.
2.
A game of dice in which he who threw three alike won all the stakes. (Obs.)






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Raffle" Quotes from Famous Books



... drew the door behind them, and on all fours embarked on a dark and dirty road full of plaster, odd shavings, and all the raffle that builders leave in the waste room of a house. The passage was perhaps three feet wide, and, except for the struggling light round the edges of the cupboards (there was one to ...
— Stalky & Co. • Rudyard Kipling

... in the arbour by some common instinct. Then came a bull's-eye flash of struggling moonshine, which disclosed their four figures standing huddled from the wind in a raffle of flying drapery, and not without a considerable need for more. At the humiliating spectacle Anastasie clutched her night-dress desperately about her and burst loudly into tears. The Doctor flew to console her; but she elbowed him away. She suspected ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 6 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... into a jarring laugh, remembering how he had stuck to the circus-rider woman—the depth of passion under that placid surface, which even cuts with a riding-whip (so the legend had it) could never raffle into the semblance of a storm; something like the passion of a fish would be if one could imagine such a thing as a ...
— 'Twixt Land & Sea • Joseph Conrad

... time slipped away in this innocent play, When up jumped the bold Montague: "Where's that specimen pin that I gayly did win In raffle, and gave unto you, Fortescue?" No word spoke ...
— Complete Poetical Works of Bret Harte • Bret Harte

... it overboard, and let it drift to the boat. It was seized, a hawser made fast, and we dragged the great rope on board. By means of this hawser the lifeboatmen hauled their craft under our quarter, clear of the raffle. But there was no such rush made for her as might be thought. No! I owe it to my shipmates to say this. Two of them shinned out upon the mizzenmast to the body of the second mate, that was lashed eight or nine feet away over the side, and got him into the boat before they entered it themselves. ...
— Heroes of the Goodwin Sands • Thomas Stanley Treanor

... because she could not get over her troubles that they loved her. Outside Lily Dale and the chief interest of the novel, The Small House at Allington is, I think, good. The De Courcy family are alive, as is also Sir Raffle Buffle, who is a hero of the Civil Service. Sir Raffle was intended to represent a type, not a man; but the man for the picture was soon chosen, and I was often assured that the portrait was very like. I have never seen the gentleman with whom I am supposed to have taken the liberty. There ...
— Autobiography of Anthony Trollope • Anthony Trollope

... one's chance, take a shot at it (attempt) 675; run the risk, run the chance, incur the risk, incur the chance, encounter the risk, encounter the chance; stand the hazard of the die. speculate, try one's luck, set on a cast, raffle, put into a lottery, buy a pig in a poke, shuffle the cards. risk, venture, hazard, stake; ante; lay, lay a wager; make a bet, wager, bet, gamble, game, play for; play at chuck farthing. Adj. fortuitous &c 156; unintentional, unintended; accidental; not meant; undesigned, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget

... demanded, looking in the direction from which the sound proceeded, and as I spoke a figure uphove itself from among the raffle of the port main rigging, which lay athwart the deck, and a voice which I recognised as ...
— Turned Adrift • Harry Collingwood

... a step to git the law on him an' I'll tell what I know. What did I find out about you? The money stole out o' the box after they had the raffle for the War, the deed under old lady Blaisdell's feather bed, because it wa'n't recorded an' it left you with the right an' title to that forty feet o' land. Five counts!" She held up her left hand and told off one finger after the other. "I've got 'em all down in my mind, an' ...
— Old Crow • Alice Brown

... tremendous innovation. We've got on quite well enough for nearly four years without entertainments, save those which are, so to speak, indigenous and natural. I don't at all like the idea of vaudeville, and I abhor a raffle!" ...
— Ainslee's, Vol. 15, No. 6, July 1905 • Various

... won the Presidency," said he, to the Republicans, "and you are now in the situation of the man who had won the elephant at a raffle. You do not know what to do with the beast now that you have it; and one-half of you to-day would give your right arms if you had been defeated. But you succeeded, and you have to deal with facts. Our ...
— The Great Conspiracy, Complete • John Alexander Logan

... to understand," the Cap'n shouted back with just as much vigor—"it ain't any jack-pot, nor table-stakes, nor prize put up for a raffle. It's town money, and ...
— The Skipper and the Skipped - Being the Shore Log of Cap'n Aaron Sproul • Holman Day

... myself in any way unpleasant, your ladyship," I said; "but this instrument was offered for raffle as being worth five pounds, and it's not worth ...
— Eliza • Barry Pain

... back to the ship by a crew selected among themselves, for the remainder of the men. In the meantime, while the boats were transferring some of the men to the shore, the remainder were to set to work to construct rafts as quickly as possible out of the raffle of wreckage washing about the deck and alongside, so that, in the event of the boats not having time to make more than the one trip, those left behind should have some means of saving their ...
— A Chinese Command - A Story of Adventure in Eastern Seas • Harry Collingwood

... heart with thankfulness, though my spirits sank again at the sight of my poor drowned shipmates. But, unless I had a mind to join them, it was necessary I should speedily bestir myself. So after a minute's reflection I whipped out my knife, and cutting a couple of blocks away from the raffle on deck, I rove a line through them, and so made a tackle, by the help of which I turned the jolly-boat over; I then with a handspike prised her nose to the gangway, secured a bunch of rope on either side her to act as fenders or buffers ...
— The Frozen Pirate • W. Clark Russell

... importance, a new and more dazzling object of ambition, would be presented to the leading men of each colony. Instead of piddling for the little prizes which are to be found in what may be called the paltry raffle of colony faction, they might then hope, from the presumption which men naturally have in their own ability and good fortune, to draw some of the great prizes which sometimes come from the wheel of the great state ...
— An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations • Adam Smith

... furnished the gayest, most fashionable war-work yet, and has kept social circles in a flutter of pleasant, heroic excitement all through December. Everything beautiful or rare garnered in the homes of the rich was given for exhibition, and in some cases for raffle and sale. There were many fine paintings, statues, bronzes, engravings, gems, laces—in fact, heirlooms and bric-a-brac of all sorts. There were many lovely creole girls present, in exquisite toilets, passing to ...
— Famous Adventures And Prison Escapes of the Civil War • Various

... was still sliding down the steep deck of his new and unstable world. But he did not bring up against the rail where his fragile ribs might well have been broken. Instead, the warm ocean water, pouring inboard across the buried rail in a flood of pale phosphorescent fire, cushioned his fall. A raffle of trailing ropes entangled him as he ...
— Jerry of the Islands • Jack London

... at the station for some time. But even in death he was destined to prove the friend of the brigade. For, one of the engineers having committed suicide, the firemen determined to raffle him for the benefit of the widow, and such was his fame that he realized 123 pounds 10 shillings, 9 pence, or ...
— The Junior Classics Volume 8 - Animal and Nature Stories • Selected and arranged by William Patten

... the other hand, 'young dropsy's' legs and arms were like links of dried 'bolonas' in the garments which misfortune's raffle had drawn for him. Hats without rims—hats of fur, dreadfully plucked, with free ventilation for the scalp—caps with big tips like little porches of leather—caps without tips, or, if a tip still clung to it, it was by a single thread and dangled on ...
— Lights and Shadows of New York Life - or, the Sights and Sensations of the Great City • James D. McCabe

... heap of gear—stay-sail, and jib-halyards, and other ropes, some of the ends swarming overboard. I hauled in one of these ends, but found I could not clear the raffle; but looking round, I perceived a couple of coils of line—spare stun'-sail tacks or halyards I took them to be—lying close against the foot of the bowsprit. I immediately seized the end of one of these coils, and flung it into the boat, telling them to drop clear of the wreck astern; ...
— Great Sea Stories • Various

... again to a neat square and lodged the soap in it, smiling. Silly lips of that chap. Betting. Regular hotbed of it lately. Messenger boys stealing to put on sixpence. Raffle for large tender turkey. Your Christmas dinner for threepence. Jack Fleming embezzling to gamble then smuggled off to America. Keeps a hotel now. They never come back. ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce

... but it is rusty and dusty, and never turns. A large doll, with moveable eyes, was put up to be raffled for, by five- and-twenty members at two shillings, seven years ago this autumn, and the list is not full yet. We are rather sanguine, now, that the raffle will come off next year. We think so, because we only want nine members, and should only want eight, but for number two having grown up since her name was entered, and withdrawn it when she was married. Down the street, there is a toy-ship of considerable burden, ...
— Reprinted Pieces • Charles Dickens

... to watch. His bridge would stand what was upon her now, but not very much more; and if by any of a thousand chances there happened to be a weakness in the embankments, Mother Gunga would carry his honour to the sea with the other raffle. Worst of all, there was nothing to do except to sit still; and Findlayson sat still under his macintosh till his helmet became pulp on his head, and his boots were over ankle in mire. He took no count of time, for the river was marking the ...
— Kipling Stories and Poems Every Child Should Know, Book II • Rudyard Kipling

... the property of the Stamford family,—having been won, it is said, in a raffle, by Sir ——Stamford, during the stock-gambling mania of the South-Sea Scheme. The history of this gentleman may be found in an interesting series of questions (unfortunately not yet answered) contained in the 'Notes and Queries.' ...
— The Book of Anecdotes and Budget of Fun; • Various

... the festival of the boy bishop, to hear his sermon and receive his blessing. Then they dined together, and waited for the young bishop to come to them, playing the meanwhile at dice, the town clerk being ordered to find the dice, and to receive a penny for every raffle. The bishop was regaled with bread and wine, and preached again to the Mayor and corporation in the evening. I am informed that a curious memorial of this custom existed until recent years in one village at least. An old lady ...
— Old English Sports • Peter Hampson Ditchfield

... minutes she had come to and was leaning on her elbow and declaring herself to be all right. Then she got on her feet and, taking her seat on the side of the open hatch, looked about her at the dingy deck cumbered with a whale boat and all sorts of raffle. The slight swell of the bay rocked the barque to the creaking tune of block and cordage, whilst overhead the sea-gulls flitted mewing against the vast black cliff that rose three hundred feet sheer from ...
— The Beach of Dreams • H. De Vere Stacpoole

... I bet you a 'dringer' that you won't make ten runs in a house-match; it's gambling if I raffle a picture and you take a sixpenny ticket. Are you going to give up ...
— The Hill - A Romance of Friendship • Horace Annesley Vachell

... put a red one opposite over the cue rack, thinking it might help him to put a little fire into his discourse. When all was ready, I obtained the bullock bell from the kitchen. The Chinaman cook, who was a sporting character, said:—"Wha for, nother raffle, all ri, put me down one pund." He refused, however, to give the money when he learnt ...
— Reminiscences of Queensland - 1862-1869 • William Henry Corfield



Words linked to "Raffle" :   give, lottery, present, gift, drawing, raffle off



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