life raft

See also: liferaft

English

Alternative forms

• liferaft

Etymology

life +‎ raft

Noun

life raft (plural life rafts)

1. A usually inflatable raft carried aboard a ship or airplane, used to save lives in case the vessel has to be abandoned in an emergency on the sea.
2. (figuratively) Something that provides help in a state of difficulty or despair.
   • 2019 February 6, Eliza Shapiro, “Racist? Fair? Biased? Asian-American Alumni Debate Elite High School Admissions”, in The New York Times‎^[1]:

     For Mr. Kim, a mediocre middle school student who was often in trouble, Stuyvesant, from which he graduated in 1993, was a life raft. Now, as the president of Stuyvesant’s alumni organization, an advocacy group with deep ties to politicians, he has one of the most powerful voices in the debate about specialized school admissions.

Related terms

• lifeboat

Translations

inflatable raft

• Chinese:

  Mandarin: 救生筏 (zh) (jiùshēngfá)

• Danish: redningsflåde c
• Finnish: pelastuslautta (fi)
• French: canot de sauvetage (fr) m
• German: Rettungsinsel (de) f, Rettungsfloß n
• Japanese: 救命いかだ (きゅうめいいかだ, kyūmei ikada)
• Norwegian:

  Bokmål: redningsflåte m

  Nynorsk: redningsflåte m

• Russian: спаса́тельный плот m (spasátelʹnyj plot)
• Slovene: please add this translation if you can
• Swedish: livbåt (sv) c