river
See also: River
EnglishEdit
Etymology 1Edit
From Middle English ryver, 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 *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) 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, 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.
- 1908, Kenneth Grahame, The Wind in the Willows
- 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 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 termsEdit
Terms derived from river (etymology 1, noun)
- cry someone a river
- Eagle River
- Elk River
- Fall River
- Green River
- Hood River
- Indian River
- Little River
- Pearl River
- Powder River
- riverbank
- riverbed
- river basin
- river bed
- river birch
- river blindness
- riverboat/river boat
- river bottom
- river boulder
DescendantsEdit
- Sranan Tongo: liba
TranslationsEdit
large stream which drains a landmass
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any large flow of a liquid
- 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.
Translations to be checked
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See alsoEdit
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
PronunciationEdit
- (Received Pronunciation) IPA(key): /ˈɹaɪvə/
- (General American) IPA(key): /ˈɹaɪvɚ/
- Rhymes: -aɪvə(ɹ)
NounEdit
river (plural rivers)
ReferencesEdit
- river in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913.
DanishEdit
FrenchEdit
EtymologyEdit
From a Germanic source (compare Danish rive).
PronunciationEdit
VerbEdit
river
- to drive/set a rivet
ConjugationEdit
Conjugation of river (see also Appendix:French verbs)
| infinitive | simple | river | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| compound | avoir + past participle | ||||||
| present participle or gerund1 | simple | rivant /ʁi.vɑ̃/ | |||||
| 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/ |
| 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 | |||||
| pluperfect2 | imperfect subjunctive of avoir + past participle | ||||||
| imperative | – | – | – | ||||
| 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). | |||||||
Related termsEdit
Further readingEdit
- “river” in le Trésor de la langue française informatisé (The Digitized Treasury of the French Language).