thatch-rake

English

a thatch rake

Alternative forms

• thatch rake

Noun

thatch-rake (plural thatch-rakes)

1. A tool for combing the straw or similar material in a thatched roof straight, consisting of a straight bar with curved teeth or points.
   • 1897, Jerome Klapka Jerome, Robert Barr, Arthur Lawrence, The Idler - Volume 10, page 542:

     He gripped his thatch-rake and, swinging it, struck at a tree.

   • 1898, Edward Walford, John Charles Cox, George Latimer Apperson, The Antiquary - Volume 34, page 177:

     And of the implements belonging to farming forming armorial bearings, he says some of the chiefest and most frequent are ploughs, harrows, scythes, and wheels. Others not named by Guillim are dung forks, hay-hooks, rakes, sickles, spades, and thatch-rakes.

   • 1974, Garry Hogg, The English Country Inn, page 50:

     ... there stand out, imaginatively arranged and mounted, scythes and besoms, wicked-looking hay-knives, two-handed cross-cut tree-felling saws, saddlery and harness-work, ox-yokes and milkmaids' yokes, pitchforks, hay-rakes, ox-horns, antlers, man-traps, wagon-wheels, ploughs and ploughshares, delicately fashioned pony-trap wheels, curved shafts, carriage-lamps, thatch-rakes and goodness-knows-what-else.

2. (heraldry) A representation of such a rake, used as a charge on the field or as a bordure device consisting of a straight line from which periodically project short perpendicular lines with slightly curved tips.
   • 1796, Daniel Lysons, The Environs of London: Counties of Herts, Essex & Kent, page 331:

     A. __Puckering, impaling, S. three thatch-rakes

   • 1828, William Berry, Encyclopaedia Heraldica Or Complete Dictionary of Heraldry:

     See Plate XLVI. fig. 10, viz. three thatch-rakes, barwise.

   • 1894, James Parker, A Glossary of Terms Used in Heraldry, page 488:

     The thatch-rake or thatcher's rake is drawn as in the margin; but it is liable to be confused with the wool-comb and thatch-hook.

   • 1971, Julian Franklyn, Shield and Crest: An Account of the Art and Science of Heraldry:

     The pitchfork, the hay-fork, and the dung-fork, the tillage-rake and the thatch-rake, all occur, but there is little or no difference discernible between one and another, the forks are forks and the rakes rakes.

Synonyms

• thatcher's rake