Thesaurus results for RAILS

rails 1 of 2

noun

plural of rail

as in railings

a protective barrier consisting of a horizontal bar and its supports the stairs are icy, so hold onto the rail

Synonyms & Similar Words

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as in roads

a roadway overlaid with parallel steel rails over which trains travel an abandoned stretch of rail that was overgrown with brush

Synonyms & Similar Words

rails

2 of 2

verb

present tense third-person singular of rail

as in rants

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Example Sentences

Examples are automatically compiled from online sources to show current usage. Read More Opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.

Recent Examples of rails

Noun

Meanwhile, the side rails of the ship bend like ring ropes when Batman’s thrown into them. — Daniel Dockery, Vulture, 24 Aug. 2026 And while crime on public transit is rare in general, a February Charlotte Observer investigation found violent incidents were more likely to occur on buses rather than light rails, and that bus drivers were especially vulnerable. — Charlotte Observer, 22 Aug. 2026 But the mystery train starts veering off the rails as Flowers wanders away from enjoyable rhinestone reinvention and defaults to the heavy-handed Springsteenian realism that’s sometimes been both his Rosetta stone and his Achilles’ heel. — Jon Dolan, Rolling Stone, 21 Aug. 2026 For companies at the heart of commerce, the good old game is the checkout page and the rails beneath it. — Lital Marom, Forbes.com, 21 Aug. 2026 Staff had been using full bed rails as restraints on two residents without consent, a November 2021 complaint said. — Carol Marbin Miller, Miami Herald, 21 Aug. 2026 There are also satellite populations, like one in the Baltimore, Maryland, area, that are isolated and brought in through shipping containers, freight rails or air travel, Heinsohn said. — Julia Gomez, USA Today, 21 Aug. 2026 When a billionaire starts seeking the Wall Street equivalent of a payday loan, things are officially off the rails. — Dieter Kurtenbach, Mercury News, 19 Aug. 2026 That could include autonomous vehicles for shuttling materials and parts between workstations or robotic arms moving on rails along the length of a production line. — Jeremy Hsu, ArsTechnica, 17 Aug. 2026

Recent Examples of Synonyms for rails

Noun

Few signs of humanity interrupted the rocky shoreline — just a couple of cabins and the wooden railings of a path leading to a wizened cedar tree revered by the tribe.

— Michael Hawthorne, Chicago Tribune, 23 Aug. 2026
Mayor William Donald Schaefer reportedly worried that people would climb up and sit on railings, and that this was somehow riskier than an open edge.

— Joseph V. Sakran, Baltimore Sun, 15 Aug. 2026

Definition of railings

Verb

And his ultimate war is with Bob, a tech CEO who rants about his haters and has gotten rich off rebranded snake oil and whose obvious corruption has been obscured by his self-mythologizing.

— Alison Willmore, Vulture, 29 Aug. 2025
One grumbles when the driver rants about development’s ravages.

— Mark Ellwood, Robb Report, 10 Aug. 2025

Definition of rants

Noun

The rapid expansion of railroads allowed products to be distributed far beyond local markets.

— Britannica Editors, Encyclopedia Britannica, 21 Aug. 2026
While the railroads take sides on the issue, some lawmakers have sought to sway the STB into rejecting the megamerger.

— Glenn Taylor, Footwear News, 19 Aug. 2026

Definition of railroads

Noun

The Lobito Corridor is an economic artery comprised of ports, railways, processing facilities, and logistics hubs connecting the Angolan port of Lobito with the mineral-rich Katanga region of the DRC and northern Zambia.

— Ariel Cohen, Forbes.com, 18 Aug. 2026
More than 14 inches of rain fell in a 24-hour period in parts of Chiba, which sits east of Tokyo, overwhelming roads and railways during one of Japan's busiest holiday travel weeks.

— Anthony Thompson, USA Today, 14 Aug. 2026