raile

Noun

rail (plural rails)

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.1913, Joseph C[rosby] Lincoln, chapter VII, in Mr. Pratt’s Patients, New York, N.Y.; London: D[aniel] Appleton and Company, →OCLC
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.2013 June 1, “Ideas coming down the track”, in The Economist, volume 407, number 8838, page 13 (Technology Quarterly)
3. A railroad; a railway, as a means of transportation.
   • We travelled to the seaside by rail.
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.
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.c. 2000, Nick Carroll, surfline.com http://www.surfline.com/community/whoknows/10_21_rails.cfm

See all 22 meanings of rail