rill

Etymology

From or akin to West Frisian ril (“rill; a narrow channel”), Dutch ril (“rill; gully; trench; watercourse”), German Low German Rille, Rill (“a small channel; brook; furrow”), German Rille (“a groove; furrow”).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ɹɪl/

  Rhymes: -ɪl

Noun

rill (plural rills)

1. A very small brook; a streamlet.
   • 1797, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Kubla Khan:

     So twice five miles of fertile ground

     With walls and towers were girdled round:

     And there were gardens bright with sinuous rills,

     Where blossomed many an incense-bearing tree;

     And here were forests ancient as the hills,

     Enfolding sunny spots of greenery.

   • 1751 Thomas Gray, Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard:

     ...nor yet beside the rill,

     Nor up the lawn, nor at the wood was he

2. (planetology) Alternative form of rille

Verb

rill (third-person singular simple present rills, present participle rilling, simple past and past participle rilled)

1. To trickle, pour, or run as like a small stream.
   • 1862, Gerard Manley Hopkins, Il Mystico, 81-86:

     And fainter, finer, trickle far

     To where the listening uplands are;

     To pause—then from his gurgling bill

     Let the warbled sweetness rill,

     And down the welkin, gushing free,

     Hark the molten melody;