rail

Concise Oxford English Dictionary © 2008 Oxford University Press:
rail1 /reɪl/

▶noun

• 1 a bar or bars fixed on upright supports or attached to a wall or ceiling, serving as part of a fence or barrier or used to hang things on.

• 2 a steel bar or line of bars laid on the ground as one of a pair forming a railway track.

• 3 railways as a means of transport.

• 4 a horizontal piece in the frame of a panelled door or sash window. Compare with stile2.

• 5 the edge of a surfboard or sailboard.

• 6 Electronics a conductor which is maintained at a fixed potential and to which other parts of a circuit are connected.

▶verb

• 1 provide or enclose with a rail or rails.

• 2 convey (goods) by rail.

• 3 (in windsurfing) sail the board on its edge.

– phrases
go off the rails informal begin behaving in an uncontrolled way.
on the rails

• 1 informal functioning in a normal or regulated way.

• 2 (of a racehorse or jockey) in a position on the racetrack nearest the inside fence.

– derivatives
railage noun,
railless adjective.

– origin ME: from OFr. reille ‘iron rod’, from L. regula ‘straight stick, rule’.

Concise Oxford English Dictionary © 2008 Oxford University Press:
rail2

▶verb (rail against/at) complain or protest strongly about or to.

– derivatives
railer noun.

– origin ME: from Fr. railler, from Provençal ralhar ‘to jest’, based on an alt. of L. rugire ‘to bellow’.

Concise Oxford English Dictionary © 2008 Oxford University Press:
rail3

▶noun a secretive waterside bird with typically drab grey and brown plumage. [Rallus and other genera, family Rallidae.]

– origin ME: from Old North. Fr. raille, perh. imitative.