rivulet
English edit
Etymology edit
From Old French riveret (“little stream”) or from Italian rivoletto, from Italian rivo, from Latin rivus.
Pronunciation edit
Noun edit
rivulet (plural rivulets)
- A small brook or stream; a streamlet; a gill.
- A rivulet of tears ran down his face.
- 1777, Richard Brinsley Sheridan, The School for Scandal, I.i:
- Yes Madam I think you will like them—when you shall see in a beautiful Quarto Page how a neat rivulet of Text shall meander thro' a meadow of margin—'fore Gad, they will be the most elegant Things of their kind—
- 1918, W[illiam] B[abington] Maxwell, chapter XXIII, in The Mirror and the Lamp, Indianapolis, Ind.: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, →OCLC:
- The struggle with ways and means had recommenced, more difficult now a hundredfold than it had been before, because of their increasing needs. Their income disappeared as a little rivulet that is swallowed by the thirsty ground.
- 1945, Charles Cotton, Geomorphology: An Introduction to the Study of Landforms:
- Rills running down the steepest slopes develop into rivulets.
- Perizoma affinitatum, a geometrid moth.
Synonyms edit
- (small brook or stream): rill
Derived terms edit
Related terms edit
Translations edit
small brook
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