rill
See also: Rill
English
editEtymology
editFrom 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
edit- IPA(key): /ɹɪl/
Audio (Southern England): (file) - Rhymes: -ɪl
Noun
editrill (plural rills)
- 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.
- (planetology) Alternative form of rille.
Derived terms
editTranslations
editvery small brook
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Verb
editrill (third-person singular simple present rills, present participle rilling, simple past and past participle rilled)
- 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
editEtymology
edit(This etymology is missing or incomplete. Please add to it, or discuss it at the Etymology scriptorium.)
Verb
editrill (present analytic rilleann, future analytic rillfidh, verbal noun rilleadh, past participle rillte)
- (transitive) riddle, sieve, sift
- (transitive) pour (as from sieve)
Conjugation
editconjugation of rill (first conjugation – A)
* indirect relative
† archaic or dialect form
Derived terms
edit- rilleán m (“riddle, coarse sieve”)
Further reading
edit- Ó Dónaill, Niall (1977) “rill”, in Foclóir Gaeilge–Béarla, Dublin: An Gúm, →ISBN
- de Bhaldraithe, Tomás (1959) “rillim”, in English-Irish Dictionary, An Gúm
- “rill”, in New English-Irish Dictionary, Foras na Gaeilge, 2013-2024
Categories:
- English 1-syllable words
- English terms with IPA pronunciation
- English terms with audio pronunciation
- Rhymes:English/ɪl
- Rhymes:English/ɪl/1 syllable
- English lemmas
- English nouns
- English countable nouns
- English terms with quotations
- en:Planetology
- English verbs
- en:Bodies of water
- Irish lemmas
- Irish verbs
- Irish transitive verbs
- Irish first-conjugation verbs of class A