See also: Rill

English

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Etymology

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From or akin to West Frisian ril (rill; a narrow channel), Dutch ril (rill; gully; trench; watercourse), German Low German Rille, Rill (a small channel; brook; furrow), German Rille (a groove; furrow).

Pronunciation

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Noun

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rill (plural rills)

  1. A very small brook; a streamlet; a creek, rivulet.
    • 1750 June 12 (date written; published 1751), T[homas] Gray, “Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard”, in Designs by Mr. R[ichard] Bentley, for Six Poems by Mr. T. Gray, London: [] R[obert] Dodsley, [], published 1753, →OCLC:
      [N]or yet beside the rill / Nor up the lawn, nor at the wood was he
    • 1797, S[amuel] T[aylor] Coleridge, “Kubla Khan: Or A Vision in a Dream”, in Christabel: Kubla Khan, a Vision: The Pains of Sleep, London: [] John Murray, [], by William Bulmer and Co. [], published 1816, →OCLC, pages 55–56:
      So twice five miles of fertile ground / With walls and towers were girdled round: / And here were gardens bright with sinuous rills, / Where blossom'd many an incense-bearing tree; / And here were forests ancient as the hills, / And folding sunny spots of greenery.
    • 1860, R[alph] W[aldo] Emerson, “Essay III. Wealth.”, in The Conduct of Life, Boston, Mass.: Ticknor and Fields, →OCLC, page 101:
      The secret of success lies never in the amount of money, but in the relation of income to outgo; as if, after expense has been fixed at a certain point, then new and steady rills of income, though never so small, being added, wealth begins.
    • 1936, Norman Lindsay, The Flyaway Highway, Sydney: Angus and Robertson, page 53:
      "Most of them don't wash. Those who do usually plunge their head into some brook or rill, if there happens to be one about."
    • 1955, J.R.R. Tolkien, The Return of the King:
      Light grew, and lo! the Company passed through another gateway, high-arched and broad, and a rill ran out beside them; and beyond, going steeply down, was a road between sheer cliffs, knife-edged against the sky far above.
  2. (planetology) Alternative form of rille.

Derived terms

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Translations

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Verb

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rill (third-person singular simple present rills, present participle rilling, simple past and past participle rilled)

  1. To trickle, pour, or run like a small stream.
    • 1862, Gerard Manley Hopkins, Il Mystico, 81-86:
      And fainter, finer, trickle far
      To where the listening uplands are;
      To pause—then from his gurgling bill
      Let the warbled sweetness rill,
      And down the welkin, gushing free,
      Hark the molten melody;
    • 1956, Anthony Burgess, Time for a Tiger (The Malayan Trilogy), published 1972, page 158:
      Alladad Khan was panting hard, soaked in sweat, and his rolled-up sleeve was all blood, blood rilling down his arm.

Irish

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Etymology

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(This etymology is missing or incomplete. Please add to it, or discuss it at the Etymology scriptorium.)

Verb

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rill (present analytic rilleann, future analytic rillfidh, verbal noun rilleadh, past participle rillte)

  1. (transitive) riddle, sieve, sift
  2. (transitive) pour (as from sieve)

Conjugation

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Derived terms

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  • rilleán m (riddle, coarse sieve)

Further reading

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