"As Thin as a Rake": But What Is a Rake?

Author / Editor
Considine, John.

Title
"As Thin as a Rake": But What Is a Rake?

Published
Notes and Queries 256 (2011): 490-91.

Description
Shows that "rake" in the proverbial simile "thin as a rake/rail" (first attested in English in the GP description of the Clerk's horse, I.288) means a fodder crib.

Chaucer Subjects
Language and Word Studies
Clerk and His Tale