RAFFLE  , a

special kind of lottery, in which a particular article is put up as the prize, the winner being drawn for by lot out of the number of those who have paid a fixed sum for admission to the drawing; the total amount realized by the sale of the tickets is supposed to approximate' to the value of the object raffled for . The word appears in English as early as Chaucer (The Parson's Tale) where it is used in its original sense of a game of dice, the winner being that one who threw three dice all alike, or, next, the highest pair . The Fr. mile . Med . Lat. raffla, was also used in the sense of a " sweeping-off " of the stakes in a game; it has been connected with Ger. raffen, to carry off .