rivulet

English

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.

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ˈɹɪv.jʊ.lɪt/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /ˈɹɪv.jə.lət/

• Audio (Southern England):

  (file)

Noun

rivulet (plural rivulets)

1. A small 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.

2. Perizoma affinitatum, a geometrid moth.

Synonyms

• (small brook or stream): rill

Derived terms

• Blomer's rivulet

Related terms

• rival

Translations

small brook

• Armenian: գետակ (hy) (getak)
• Bulgarian: поток (bg) m (potok), ручей (bg) m (ručej)
• Catalan: rierol (ca) m
• Chinese:

  Mandarin: 小河 (zh) (xiǎohé), 涓流 (zh) (juānliú), 溪流 (zh) (xīliú)

• Czech: potůček (cs) m, říčka (cs) f
• Dutch: stroompje (nl) n, beekje (nl) n
• Esperanto: ^{(please verify)} rivereto, rojo (eo)
• Finnish: noro (fi)
• French: ruisselet (fr) m, ru (fr) m, rivelet (fr) m
• Galician: arroio (gl) m, regato (gl) m, regueiro (gl) m
• German: Flüsschen (de) n, Bächlein (de) n
• Greek: ποταμάκι (el) n (potamáki)
• Greenlandic: kuunnguaq
• Hungarian: patak (hu)
• Ido: rivereto (io)
• Inupiaq: kuugaatchiaq
• Irish: glaise f, glas (ga) f, silteán m, srúill f, sruthlán m
• Italian: rigagnolo (it) m
• Japanese: 小川 (ja) (おがわ, ogawa), 細流 (ja) (さいりゅう, sairyū)
• Kurdish:

  Northern Kurdish: robar (ku) f, ro (ku) m

• Māori: manga
• Occitan: rivolet m, riusset m
• Polish: rzeczka (pl) f, strumyk (pl) m
• Portuguese: riachinho m
• Russian: ручеёк (ru) m (ručejók), речу́шка (ru) f (rečúška), руче́й (ru) m (ručéj)
• Spanish: riachuelo (es) m
• Swedish: å (sv), ström (sv) c
• Tagalog: ilug-ilugan, pasalangi, sapa, saog
• Turkish: çay (tr)

  Ottoman Turkish: چای (çay), دره (dere), جدول (cedvel)

• Ukrainian: рі́чечка f (ríčečka)
• Welsh: cornant m or f, afonig f

References

• “rivulet”, in OED Online ⁠, Oxford: Oxford University Press, launched 2000.
• “rivulet”, in Merriam-Webster.com Online Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster, 1996–present.
• Douglas Harper (2001–2026), “rivulet”, in Online Etymology Dictionary.
• “rivulet”, in The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, 5th edition, Boston, Mass.: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2016, →ISBN.