rivulet
nounUK /ˈɹɪv.jʊ.lɪt/ · US /ˈɹɪv.jə.lət/
Etymology From Italian rivoletto, diminutive of rivolo (“trickle, little stream”), diminutive of rivo (“stream, brook, creek”), ultimately from Latin rīvulus, diminutive of rīvus. By surface analysis, Latin rīvus + -ule + -et.
1
A small stream; a streamlet; a gill.
- A rivulet of tears ran down his face.
- 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—1777, Richard Brinsley Sheridan, The School for Scandal, I.i:
2 more examples
- 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.1918, W[illiam] B[abington] Maxwell, chapter XXIII, in The Mirror and the Lamp, Indianapolis, Ind.: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, →OCLC:
- Rills running down the steepest slopes develop into rivulets.1945, Charles Cotton, Geomorphology: An Introduction to the Study of Landforms:
2
Perizoma affinitatum, a geometrid moth.
- Synonyms
- rill
- Derived terms
- Blomer's rivulet
- Related terms
- rival