rake

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

• intransitive & transitive verb To slant or cause to incline from the perpendicular.
• noun Inclination from the perpendicular.
• noun The angle between the cutting edge of a tool and a plane perpendicular to the working surface to which the tool is applied.
• noun The angle at which a roof is inclined.
• noun The inclined edge of a pitched roof or the roof of a gable or dormer.
• noun A long-handled implement with a row of projecting teeth at its head, used especially to gather leaves or to loosen or smooth earth.
• noun A device that resembles such an implement.
• intransitive verb To gather or move with or as if with a rake.
• intransitive verb Informal To gain in abundance. Often used with in.
• intransitive verb To smooth, scrape, or loosen with a rake or similar implement.
• intransitive verb To move over or across swiftly or harshly.
• intransitive verb To pull or drag (a comb or one's fingers, for example) over or through something, such as one's hair.
• intransitive verb To scrape; scratch.
• intransitive verb To aim heavy gunfire along the length of.
• intransitive verb To use a rake.
• intransitive verb To conduct a thorough search.
• idiom (rake over the coals) To reprimand severely.
• noun A usually well-to-do man who is dissolute or promiscuous.

from The Century Dictionary.

• noun An implement of wood or iron, or partly of both, with teeth or tines for drawing or scraping things together, evening a surface of loose materials, etc.
• noun An instrument of similar form and use with a blade instead of teeth, either entire, as a gamblers' or a maltsters' rake, or notched so as to form teeth, as a furriers' rake. See the quotations.
• To take a course; move; go; proceed.
• In hunting:
• Of a hawk, to range wildly; fly wide of the game.
• Of a dog, to follow a wrong course. See the quotation.
• noun An idle, dissolute person; one who goes about in search of vicious pleasure; a libertine; an idle person of fashion.
• noun Inclination or slope away from a perpendicular or a horizontal line.
• noun In coal-mining, a series of thin layers of ironstone lying so near each other that they can all be worked together.
• noun A lean, meager person.
• noun A local miners' term in Derbyshire, England, for veins of galena in joints in limestone, as contrasted with fault-fissures. The joints are often enlarged by the solution and removal of the walls, but they may be and usually are limited or cut off sharply by an underlying stratum. Also written rake-vein. Compare gash-vein.
• To play the part of a rake; lead a dissolute, debauched life; practise lewdness.
• To gather, clear, smooth, or stir with or as if with a rake; treat with a rake, or something that serves the same purpose: as, to rake up hay; to rake a bed in a garden; to rake the fire with a poker or raker.
• To collect as if by the use of a rake; gather assiduously or laboriously; draw or scrape together, up, or in.
• To make minute search in, as if with a rake; look over or through carefully; ransack: as, to rake all history for examples.
• To pass along with or as if with a scraping motion; impinge lightly upon in moving; hence, to pass over swiftly; scour.
• Milit., to fire upon, as a ship, so that the shot will pass lengthwise along the deck; fire in the direction of the length of, as a file of soldiers or a parapet; enfilade.
• To cover with earth raked together; bury. See to rake up, below.
• To draw from oblivion or obscurity, as something forgotten or abandoned; bring to renewed attention; resuscitate; revive: used in a more or less opprobrious sense: as, to rake up a forgotten quarrel.
• To use a rake; work with a rake, especially in drawing together hay or grain.
• To make search with or as if with a rake; seek diligently for something; pry; peer here and there.
• noun A course, way, road, or path.
• To incline from the perpendicular or the horizontal, as the mast, stem, or stern of a ship, the rafters of a roof, the end of a tool, etc. See the noun.
• To give a rake to; cause to incline or slope.
• In turpentining, to clear combustible material away from (the base of a tree), as a precaution against fire.
• In salt-making, to remove the salt from (the evaporating-pans) to the draining-table.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

• intransitive verb To use a rake, as for searching or for collecting; to scrape; to search minutely.
• intransitive verb To pass with violence or rapidity; to scrape along.