1863, Thomas George Shaw, Wine, the Vine, and the Cellar, page 152:
From 1767 to 1774 no pale wine was bottled but for immediate use; only draft wine of all kinds was used in the principal taverns, and it was often very bad, not from tricks of the vintners, but from bad management.
2015 September 14, Jeff Smith, Craft Cider: How to Turn Apples into Alcohol, The Countryman Press, →ISBN:
Another positive trend is the increase of quality in draft cider options. Draft cider has often been, and sometimes still is, considered an inferior product by cider traditionalists, who believe a true cider should come in a bottle or[…]
In the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century in the U.S., "strong" ploughs requiring the draft of four and sometimes six oxen were frequently used for breaking land which had previously lain fallow for several years.
He cast his net, which brought him a very great draft.
(British English, possibly archaic) A quantity that is requisitioned or drawn out from a larger population.
1841, Alexander Walker, Intermarriage, page 325:
As an instance: amongst a draft of young hounds from Earl F itzwilliam's was one, of whom Will Deane, his huntsman, made this remark in his letter, 'that he could not guess at Lord Foley's dislike to the hound called Glider, then sent, which was of the best blood in the country, being got by Mr. Meynell's Glider out of Lord Fitzwilliam's Blossom, and was moreover the most promising young hound he had ever entered;...
1904, Great Britain. Parliament. House of Commons, Sessional papers. Inventory control record 1 - Volume 42, page 83:
These drafts left between the 17th March and 28th April. After this there was no regular system of artillery drafts. A draft of 80 was detailed to take charge of horses on board ship as all cavalry drafts were for the time exhausted, and this draft sailed on the 30th June.
1982, John Maxwell, Brian Edmund Lloyd, Bertha Mac Smith, Letters of John Maxwell, Superintendent of Government Stock, page 206:
The Complaint about the Beef lately furnished for the use of the Troops &c at Parramatta, is not without foundation; when I commenced supplying the several Stations with animal food in January last, — a Draft of very fat Oxen was brought from Wellington for that purpose, — that draft has met the consumption of several Stations until now. — the Cattle lately remaining fell very much off in condition, though I certainly consider they were not inferior to a great deal of Beef, I have seen taken from Contractors.
1993, Lord Anglesey, A History of the British Cavalry 1816-1919: Volume 2: 1851-1871:
An earlier draft of horses for the 4th Light Dragoons, however,was very different.
2009, Philip Warner, A Cavalryman in the Crimea:
The Light Brigade have got a draft of about 250 horses from England, and we expect ours shortly.
1887, Andrew Smith McCreath, Edward Vincent D'Invilliers, The New River-Cripple Creek Mineral Region of Virginia:
[page 24:] About one quarter of a mile up the draft, the same blue-gray limestone is opened in a quarry on the Graham and Robinson farm, […] [page 31:] Up along a narrow draft heading south-east from the creek at Southern's place, a series of small pits and trenches have been dug close to the ridge […] above the level of the creek.
1894, Charles D Lanier, “Sawney's Deer-Lick”, in Scribner's Magazine, page 101:
Then came the pleasant toil up and down the ridges and drafts of the Knob.
1894, Charles D. Lanier, “On the Trail of the Wild Turkey”, in Harper's New Monthly Magazine, volume 89, number 534, page 883:
Now you have left the dividing "backbone", and climb up and down a never-ending succession of ridges and "drafts," as the ravines are called. […] a searching reconnoitre of the next long draft opened to view.
Although draft is usually an American spelling, senses 8-10 are universal, being used in both British and American English. Senses 11-13 are used in American English only. Where a particular sense is an American spelling, it is spelt draught in British English.
The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables. See instructions at Wiktionary:Entry layout § Translations.
To select someone (or something) for a particular role or purpose.
There was a campaign to draft Smith to run for President.
They drafted me to be the chairperson of the new committee.
1960 May, “Southern Newsreel”, in Trains Illustrated, page 315, photo caption:
Class "H16" 4-6-2T No. 30516 has been drafted to the Fawley branch and is here seen working a 747-ton test train across Frost Lane crossing, near Hythe, on March 6 [...].
To select and separate an animal or animals from a group.
After his last year of college football, he was drafted by the Miami Dolphins.
(transitive, intransitive) To follow very closely (behind another vehicle), thereby providing an aerodynamic advantage to both lead and follower and conserving energy or increasing speed.
2020 September 13, Andrew Benson, “Tuscan Grand Prix: Lewis Hamilton claims 90th win after incredible race”, in BBC Sport[1]:
At the restart, the positions of the Mercedes drivers was reversed. Hamilton drafted Bottas down to Turn One and took the lead around the outside, controlling the race from there.
Michael B. Montgomery, Jennifer K. N. Heinmiller, Dictionary of Southern Appalachian English (2021), draft: "A small stream or a tributary of one", "A ravine or gully through which water intermittently flows or once flowed"
DARE Survey (Marlinton WV, 1968): "a very narrow valley"
Charles Forster Smith, On Southernisms (1886), draught: "valley of a stream smaller than a creek"
Josiah Combs, A word-list from the Southern highlands (1944): "a brook or small stream"
Jacob Poole (d. 1827) (before 1828) William Barnes, editor, A Glossary, With some Pieces of Verse, of the old Dialect of the English Colony in the Baronies of Forth and Bargy, County of Wexford, Ireland, London: J. Russell Smith, published 1867, page 36