river

See also: River

English

A river

Etymology 1

From Middle English river, rivere, borrowed from Anglo-Norman rivere, from Old French riviere, from Vulgar Latin *riparia (“riverbank, seashore, river”), from Latin riparius (“of a riverbank”), from ripa (“river bank”), from Proto-Indo-European *rey- (“to scratch, tear, cut”). Compare West Frisian rivier (“river”), Dutch rivier (“river”), Middle Low German rivêr (“river”), Middle High German rivier (“brook, stream”), Middle High German rivier, riviere, revier ("district"; > German Revier (“area, territory, district”)).

Pronunciation

Noun

river (plural rivers)

  1. A large and often winding stream which drains a land mass, carrying water down from higher areas to a lower point, ending at an ocean or in an inland sea.
    • 1908, Kenneth Grahame, The Wind in the Willows
      By the side of the river he trotted as one trots, when very small, by the side of a man who holds one spell-bound by exciting stories; and when tired at last, he sat on the bank, while the river still chattered on to him, a babbling procession of the best stories in the world, sent from the heart of the earth to be told at last to the insatiable sea.
    • 2013 June 29, “High and wet”, in The Economist, volume 407, number 8842, page 28:
      Floods in northern India, mostly in the small state of Uttarakhand, have wrought disaster on an enormous scale. The early, intense onset of the monsoon on June 14th swelled rivers, washing away roads, bridges, hotels and even whole villages. Rock-filled torrents smashed vehicles and homes, burying victims under rubble and sludge.
    Occasionally rivers overflow their banks and cause floods.
  2. Any large flow of a liquid in a single body.
    a river of blood
  3. (poker) The last card dealt in a hand.
Usage notes
  • As with the names of lakes and mountains, the names of rivers are typically formed by adding the word before or after the unique term: the River Thames or the Yangtze River. Generally speaking, names formed using adjectives or attributives see river added to the end, as with the Yellow River. It is less common to add river before names than it is with lakes, but many the rivers of Britain are written that way, as with the River Severn; indeed, British English tends to use "River X" in such cases while American and Australian English use "X River". The former derives from the earlier but now uncommon form river of ~: the 19th century River of Jordan is now usually simply the River Jordan.
  • It is common to preface the proper names of rivers with the article the.
Derived terms
Translations
The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables, removing any numbers. Numbers do not necessarily match those in definitions. See instructions at Wiktionary:Entry layout#Translations.
See also
  • Category:Rivers

Verb

river (third-person singular simple present rivers, present participle rivering, simple past and past participle rivered)

  1. (poker) To improve one’s hand to beat another player on the final card in a poker game.
    Johnny rivered me by drawing that ace of spades.

Etymology 2

rive +‎ -er

Pronunciation

Noun

river (plural rivers)

  1. One who rives or splits.

References

  • river in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913

Danish

Noun

river c

  1. plural indefinite of rive

Verb

river

  1. present tense of rive

French

Etymology

From a Germanic source (compare Danish rive).

Pronunciation

  • IPA(key): /ʁi.ve/

Verb

river

  1. to drive/set a rivet

Conjugation

Further reading

Anagrams

Latin

Verb

rīver

  1. first-person singular present passive subjunctive of rīvō

Norwegian Bokmål

Noun

river m, f

  1. indefinite plural of rive

Verb

river

  1. present tense of rive

Norwegian Nynorsk

Noun

river f

  1. indefinite plural of rive

Swedish

Verb

river

  1. present tense of riva.
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