rain
verb/reɪn/
/reɪn/
Verb Forms
Idioms Phrasal Verbs| present simple I / you / we / they rain | /reɪn/ /reɪn/ |
| he / she / it rains | /reɪnz/ /reɪnz/ |
| past simple rained | /reɪnd/ /reɪnd/ |
| past participle rained | /reɪnd/ /reɪnd/ |
| -ing form raining | /ˈreɪnɪŋ/ /ˈreɪnɪŋ/ |
- [intransitive] when it rains, water falls from the sky in drops
- Is it raining?
- It had been raining hard all night.
- It was still raining heavily.
- It hardly rained at all last summer.
- It rained and rained (= continued to rain for a long time) and didn't stop for days.
- It started to rain.
- It's stopped raining now.
- It had been raining non-stop for two days.
Homophones rain | reign | reinrain reign rein/reɪn//reɪn/- rain noun
- Look at that rain! We'll be drenched if it doesn't stop.
- rain verb
- Take an umbrella—it's going to rain.
- reign noun
- The country changed dramatically during her long reign.
- reign verb
- Henry Bolingbroke was soon to reign in England as Henry IV.
- rein noun
- She's been given free rein to spend the money however she wants.
- rein verb
- Steps were taken to rein in expenditure.
Extra ExamplesTopics Weathera1- I don't think it's going to rain.
- It rained incessantly for the whole two weeks.
- It's been raining solidly for an hour now.
Oxford Collocations Dictionaryadverb- hard
- heavily
- a little
- …
- begin to
- start to
- be going to
- …
- start raining
- stop raining
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- [intransitive, transitive] to fall or to make something fall on somebody/something in large quantities
- rain (down) (on somebody/something) Bombs rained (down) on the city’s streets.
- Falling debris rained on us from above.
- He covered his face as the blows rained down on him (= he was hit repeatedly).
- rain something (down) (on somebody/something) The volcano erupted, raining hot ash over a wide area.
- The floorboards above shook, raining dust and splinters over our heads.
Word OriginOld English regn (noun), regnian (verb), of Germanic origin; related to Dutch regen and German Regen.
Idioms
See rain in the Oxford Advanced American DictionarySee rain in the Oxford Learner's Dictionary of Academic Englishbe raining cats and dogs
- (informal) to be raining heavily
it never rains but it pours (British English)
(North American English when it rains, it pours)
- (saying) used to say that when one bad thing happens to you, other bad things happen soon after
rain on somebody’s parade
- (informal) to prevent somebody from enjoying an event; to cause somebody's plans to fail
Check pronunciation:
rain