Rayne

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A small city in south-central Louisiana known for its frog festival and rice-growing history ; a personal name given to a girl or boy
2. A town located in southwestern Louisiana, famous for its crawfish culture ; a first name used for people of either gender
3. A city in the Acadiana region of Louisiana ; a feminine or masculine forename of English origin

Etymology: "Rayne" is simply an older spelling of "rain", the everyday word for water falling from clouds. Its spelling was once fluid: in Middle English the form was "reyn" or "rein", which came from Old English "reġn". That Old English word traces back through a Proto-West Germanic form to a Proto-Germanic root, "regną", and the family resemblance is striking, since the same word for rain appears across the Germanic languages today: Dutch "regen", German "Regen", Swedish and Danish "regn", and Gothic "rign". Those cousins all share a common ancestor, which is why English speakers can recognise the word in so many neighbouring tongues. The word's deeper origin is uncertain. It may come from a very ancient root meaning "to flow", but the consonant changes needed to link the two do not line up neatly, so that connection remains a guess. What is certain is that the word has been used for water from the sky for well over a thousand years in the Germanic languages.