river

EnglishEdit

A river

Etymology 1Edit

From Middle English ryver, river, rivere, borrowed from Anglo-Norman rivere, from Old French riviere, from Vulgar Latin *rīpāria (“riverbank, seashore, river”), from Latin rīpārius (“of a riverbank”), from Latin rīpa (“river bank”), from Proto-Indo-European *h₁reyp- (“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”)).

PronunciationEdit

(Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ˈɹɪvə/
(General American) enPR: rĭv'ər, IPA^(key): /ˈɹɪvɚ/
Audio (US)
(file)
Audio (UK)
(file)
Rhymes: -ɪvə(ɹ)
Hyphenation: riv‧er

NounEdit

river (plural rivers)

A large and often winding stream which drains a land mass, carrying water down from higher areas to a lower point, oftentimes ending in another body of water, such as 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.
Any large flow of a liquid in a single body.
a river of blood
(poker) The last card dealt in a hand.
(typography) A visually undesirable effect of white space running down a page, caused by spaces between words on consecutive lines happening to coincide.

Usage notesEdit

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 of 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, South African, Australian and New Zealand 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 termsEdit

Terms derived from river (etymology 1, noun)

river pear (Grias cauliflora)
river prawn (Macrobrachium spp.)
river runner
river shad (Alosa chrysochloris, Gudusia spp.)
river snail (Viviparidae)
riverside
riverward
river water
riverway
salmon river, Salmon River
sell down the river
submarine river
Three Rivers
up the river
White River

English lemmas starting with river

Related termsEdit

tributary (noun)

DescendantsEdit

Sranan Tongo: liba

TranslationsEdit

See river/translations § Noun.

VerbEdit

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

(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 2Edit

rive +‎ -er

PronunciationEdit

(Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ˈɹaɪvə/
(General American) IPA^(key): /ˈɹaɪvɚ/
Rhymes: -aɪvə(ɹ)

NounEdit

river (plural rivers)

One who rives or splits.

ReferencesEdit

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

DanishEdit

NounEdit

river c

indefinite plural of rive

VerbEdit

river

present of rive

FrenchEdit

EtymologyEdit

From a Germanic source (compare Danish rive).

PronunciationEdit

IPA^(key): /ʁi.ve/
Audio
(file)

VerbEdit

river

to drive/set a rivet

ConjugationEdit

Conjugation of river (see also Appendix:French verbs)

infinitive	compound	avoir + past participle
infinitive	simple	river
present participle or gerund¹	simple	rivant /ʁi.vɑ̃/
present participle or gerund¹	compound	ayant + past participle
past participle		rivé /ʁi.ve/
		singular			plural
		first	second	third	first	second	third
indicative		je (j’)	tu	il, elle	nous	vous	ils, elles
(simple tenses)	present	rive /ʁiv/	rives /ʁiv/	rive /ʁiv/	rivons /ʁi.vɔ̃/	rivez /ʁi.ve/	rivent /ʁiv/
	imperfect	rivais /ʁi.vɛ/	rivais /ʁi.vɛ/	rivait /ʁi.vɛ/	rivions /ʁi.vjɔ̃/	riviez /ʁi.vje/	rivaient /ʁi.vɛ/
	past historic²	rivai /ʁi.ve/	rivas /ʁi.va/	riva /ʁi.va/	rivâmes /ʁi.vam/	rivâtes /ʁi.vat/	rivèrent /ʁi.vɛʁ/
	future	riverai /ʁi.vʁe/	riveras /ʁi.vʁa/	rivera /ʁi.vʁa/	riverons /ʁi.vʁɔ̃/	riverez /ʁi.vʁe/	riveront /ʁi.vʁɔ̃/
	conditional	riverais /ʁi.vʁɛ/	riverais /ʁi.vʁɛ/	riverait /ʁi.vʁɛ/	riverions /ʁi.və.ʁjɔ̃/	riveriez /ʁi.və.ʁje/	riveraient /ʁi.vʁɛ/
(compound tenses)	present perfect	present indicative of avoir + past participle
	pluperfect	imperfect indicative of avoir + past participle
	past anterior²	past historic of avoir + past participle
	future perfect	future of avoir + past participle
	conditional perfect	conditional of avoir + past participle
subjunctive		que je (j’)	que tu	qu’il, qu’elle	que nous	que vous	qu’ils, qu’elles
(simple tenses)	present	rive /ʁiv/	rives /ʁiv/	rive /ʁiv/	rivions /ʁi.vjɔ̃/	riviez /ʁi.vje/	rivent /ʁiv/
(simple tenses)	imperfect²	rivasse /ʁi.vas/	rivasses /ʁi.vas/	rivât /ʁi.va/	rivassions /ʁi.va.sjɔ̃/	rivassiez /ʁi.va.sje/	rivassent /ʁi.vas/
(compound tenses)	past	present subjunctive of avoir + past participle
(compound tenses)	pluperfect²	imperfect subjunctive of avoir + past participle
imperative		–	tu	–	~~nous~~	~~vous~~	–
simple		—	rive /ʁiv/	—	rivons /ʁi.vɔ̃/	rivez /ʁi.ve/	—
compound		—	simple imperative of avoir + past participle	—	simple imperative of avoir + past participle	simple imperative of avoir + past participle	—
¹ The French gerund is only usable with preposition en.
² In less formal writing or speech, the past historic, past anterior, imperfect subjunctive and pluperfect subjunctive tenses may be found to have been replaced with the indicative present perfect, indicative pluperfect, present subjunctive and past subjunctive tenses respectively (Christopher Kendris [1995], Master the Basics: French, pp. 77, 78, 79, 81).