rail

noun

1. A horizontal bar extending between supports and used for support or as a barrier; a railing.

   “Old Applegate, in the stern, just set and looked at me, and Lord James, amidship, waved both arms and kept hollering for help. I took a couple of everlasting big strokes and managed to grab hold of the skiff's rail, close to the stern.”

2. The metal bar forming part of the track for a railroad.

   “A "moving platform" scheme[…]is more technologically ambitious than maglev trains even though it relies on conventional rails. Local trains would use side-by-side rails to roll alongside intercity trains and allow passengers to switch trains by stepping through docking bays.”

3. A railroad; a railway, as a means of transportation.

   “We travelled to the seaside by rail.”

   “a small Scottish village not accessible by rail”

   “rail transport”

   “It is impossible not to share the mood of excitement, of self-confidence, of pride, which seized those who lived through this heroic age of the engineers, as the railway first linked Channel and Mediterranean, as it became possible to travel by rail to Seville, to Moscow, to Brindisi, as the iron tracks pushed westwards across the North American prairies and mountains and across the Indian sub-continent in the 1860s, up the Nile valley, and into the hinterlands of Latin America in the 1870s.”

4. A conductor maintained at a fixed electrical potential relative to ground, to which other circuit components are connected.

   “ISA devices draw power from the +5 V, −5 V, +12 V, and −12 V rails of the power supply unit.”

   “There has been another, fairly gradual change in the ATX specification: Initially a lot of power was supplied on the 5V and 3.3V rails, but over time more and more power shifted to 12V because it's more efficient. Modern (ATX12V 2.x) PSUs supply most of their power on the 12V rail and not a lot on the 5V rail, which means a modern PSU may not be able to supply an old board, unless it's a really beefy PSU—because providing 500W on the 12V rail is of very little use to an AT or early ATX system.”

5. A horizontal piece of wood that serves to separate sections of a door or window.
6. One of the lengthwise edges of a surfboard.

   “Rails alone can only ever have a marginal effect on a board's general turning ability.”

7. (Internet)A vertical section on one side of a web page.

   “We're experimenting with ads in the right-hand rail.”

8. A large line (portion or serving of a powdery illegal drug).

   “Do a couple rails and chase your own tail”

9. Each of two vertical side bars supporting the rungs of a ladder.
10. The raised edge of the game board.
11. Any of several birds in the family Rallidae.
12. (obsolete)An item of clothing; a cloak or other garment; a dress.
13. (obsolete)Specifically, a woman's headscarf or neckerchief.

    “A course hempen raile about her shoulders.”

verb

1. (intransitive)To travel by railway.

   “Mottram of the Indian Survey had ridden thirty and railed one hundred miles from his lonely post in the desert […]”

2. (transitive)To place on a track.
3. (transitive)To enclose with rails or a railing.

   “It ought to be fenced in and railed.”

4. (transitive)To range in a line.

   “They were brought to London all railed in ropes, like a team of horses in a cart.”

5. (slang, transitive, vulgar)To sexually penetrate in a rough manner.
6. (slang, transitive)To snort a line of powdered drugs.

   “All I can think about is being seventeen days sober and desperate to rail a line of blow after last night's group outing to see Sofia Coppola's The Bling Ring (at my request), which, in hindsight, was a fucking dumb thing for a rehab to approve of.”

7. To complain violently (against, about).

   “Till thou canst raile the seale from off my bond Thou but offend'st thy Lungs to speake so loud: Repaire thy wit good youth, or it will fall To endlesse ruine. I stand heere for Law.”

   “He always said: “Let them rail on; he laughs best who laughs last.””

   “The Major’s fury clothed and reclothed itself in words as frantically as a woman up in town for one day’s shopping tries on a succession of garments. He reviled and railed at fate and the general scheme of things, he pitied himself with a strong, deep pity too poignant for tears, he condemned every one with whom he had ever come in contact to endless and abnormal punishments.”

   “Chief Joyi railed against the white man, whom he believed had deliberately sundered the Xhosa tribe, dividing brother from brother.”

   “The Queen may be celebrating her jubilee but the Queen's English Society, which has railed against the misuse and deterioration of the English language, is to fold.”

8. (obsolete)To gush; to flow.

   “his breste and his brayle was bloodé – and hit rayled all over the see.”

   “So furiously each other did assayle, / As if their soules they would attonce haue rent / Out of their brests, that streames of bloud did rayle / Adowne, as if their springes of life were spent[…].”

9. (obsolete)To blow.