dray
/dɹeɪ/
dray noun: any of various forms of low horse-drawn cart or wagon, often without sides or with removable sides, and used especially for heavy loads. Also the alternative spelling of drey.
Noun (1)
dray (plural drays)
- Any of various forms of low horse-drawn cart or wagon, often without sides or with removable sides, and used especially for heavy loads.
- Let him be brought into the field of election upon his dray-cart.1710 September 28, Joseph Addison, Whig-Examiner
- Standing foursquare in the heart of the town, at the intersection of the two main streets, a “jog” at each street corner left around the market-house a little public square, which at this hour was well occupied by carts and wagons from the country and empty drays awaiting hire1900, Charles W[addell] Chesnutt, chapter I, in The House Behind the Cedars, Boston, Mass.; New York, N.Y.: Houghton, Mifflin and Company […], →OCLC
- A kind of sledge or sled.
Verb
dray (third-person singular simple present drays, present participle draying, simple past and past participle drayed)
- To convey (goods) by dray.
Noun (2)
dray (plural drays)
- A group of squirrels.
- He told how the herons always came at St. Valentine's to Felborough Wood and Chilham, and how the terns came in screaming gaggles when September was ending, and where the squirrels' drays were mostly found, and where he had seen a cete of badgers.1927, Alfred Tresidder Sheppard, Here Comes an Old Sailor, page 246
- You can imagine that families and extended families who nurtured the offspring of their family, i.e. their tribe, barrel, pod (whales), or dray (squirrels) do better, i.e. have more healthier offspring who go on to produce more offspring——children and grandchildren—than those who don't nurture so...2014, Bill Nye, Undeniable: Evolution and the Science of Creation, St. Martin's Publishing Group, page 221
Proper noun capitalized: Dray
Dray (plural Drays)
- A surname.
Also used as
dray is also the alternative spelling of drey.
Examples of dray in a sentence
- ‘I’ve seen him take things and lift them into a dray - things that - that - that - well, that you and me together couldn’t lift an inch!’1911, ‘Steel Rudd’, The Book of Dan, Brisbane: University of Queensland Press, published 1970, page 84:
- The shooting motor cars, more like spiders in the moon than terrestrial objects, the thundering drays, the jingling hansoms, and little black broughams, made her think of the world she lived in.1915, Virginia Woolf, The Voyage Out, London: Duckworth & Co., […], →OCLC:
- Among the squirrels that do not form a group, one squirrel with brave leadership took command of the squirrels and formed a dray.(Can we date this quote?), 不人-Huhito, Huhito Fables Vol.13:
Forms of dray
| Noun | |
|---|---|
| plural | drays |
| Verb | |
| third-person singular present | drays |
| present participle | draying |
| past participle | drayed |
| past | drayed |
| Proper noun | |
| plural | Drays |
Origin of dray
From Middle English draye, dreye, from Old English dræġe (“dragnet”), from Proto-Germanic *dragǭ. Cognate with Middle Low German drāge (“stretcher; dray”), Middle High German trage (“a litter”). Related to Old English dragan (“to pull; draw”). More at draw.
Unknown.
Words formed from dray
Phrases with dray
Words that rhyme with dray
Questions about dray
- What does dray mean?
- Dray means any of various forms of low horse-drawn cart or wagon, often without sides or with removable sides, and used especially for heavy loads.
- How do you use dray in a sentence?
- ‘I’ve seen him take things and lift them into a dray - things that - that - that - well, that you and me together couldn’t lift an inch!’
- What part of speech is dray?
- Dray can be a noun, a verb or a proper noun.
- How do you pronounce dray?
- Dray is pronounced /dɹeɪ/.
- What is the plural of dray?
- The plural of dray is drays.
Words near dray in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: dray (page history and authors); Dray (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
Last updated:
Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-dray.wav.
Cite this entry: “dray.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/dray. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.