Feeling a Draft? (Or a Draught?)

This came up last night during our car trip for an emergency service (hot coffee): What is up with the words draft and draught? I feigned knowledge I did not have--a skill I developed in elementary school, perfected in junior high and high school, and abandoned later when I realized that technique didn't fool too many (i.e., any) of my professors in college and grad school. And it definitely didn't fool the middle school students whom I began teaching in the fall of 1966. Kids can tell when a teacher is faking!

Anyway, here's what I know (I think) before I look it all up and share it with you:

• a breeze coming through the house is a draft
• a beer on tap is draft
• there is a military draft and you can be drafted
• an ox is a draught animal
• you can take a deep draught of a liquid

Okay, let's go to the mighty Oxford English Dictionary and find out what's what ...

PAUSE WHILE I CHECK THE OED ...

And the first thing I see: draft is a "modern phonetic spelling" of draught.

I knew that (not).

And I see a few meanings I missed/forgot: 

• an order for the paying of money (a bank draft)
• a preliminary form of an art work or some writing (a rough draft) ... how in the hell did I forget to list that one?
• it's also a technical term in masonry: "Chisel-dressing at the margin of the surface of a stone to serve as a guide for the leveling of the surface." Okay, I understand that (not).

Okay, let's check out draught now ..

• the action or act of drawing or pulling (a beast of draught)
• a quantity drawn (a specific measure of something drawn or extracted)
• the act of drawing a net for fish
• the quantity of fish taken in one drawing
• a measure of weight of eels
• the drawing of a bow; a bowshot
• the drawing of a saw through a block of wood
• the drawing of a liquid into the mouth--or down the throat
• a fanciful name for a company of butlers (!!!)
• a dose of liquid medicine; a potion
• the drawing of smoke or vapor into the mouth
• the drinking in of something by the mind or soul
• a move a chess or any other similar (!) game
• a current, stream, flow
• a current of air
• an appliance for creating a draught in a fireplace
• drawing of figures

I quit! These go on and on and on and on (I've even left out some earlier--lazy). Okay, here's another one that I think is my favorite:

• the entrails of an animal drawn out

Anyway, there are 46 definitions of draught just as a noun! And dozens of compounds (many are adjectival)--e.g., draught-screen: a screen to block draughts.

Draught is also a verb--but the meanings (as I look over them) are related to the nouns.

By the way, you can read in the OED and on other sites about where the word came from--why it's pronounced the way it is--etc.

Okay, not to be lazy: Here's what Merriam-Webster says of the origin:

Middle English draht, draght, draught; akin to Old High German traht, trahta act of carrying, Old Norse drāttr act of pulling; derivatives from the root of Old English dragan to draw

First Known Use: 13th century

But here's what I learned: I don't know nuttin'! I remain, it seems, what I was in seventh grade: a fraud!