rill

[ ril ]

/ rɪl /

noun

a small rivulet or brook.

Nearby words

Origin of rill

1530–40; < Dutch or Low German; compare Frisian ril

rill

or rille

[ ril ]

/ rɪl /

noun Astronomy.

any of certain long, narrow, straight or sinuous trenches or valleys observed on the surface of the moon.

Origin of rill

1885–90; < German Rille; see rill¹

Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2019

Examples from the Web for rills

We hurried down, and found numbers of fish struggling upwards through the grass in the rills formed by the trickling of the rain.
Sketches of the Natural History of Ceylon|J. Emerson Tennent
Other rills meet this, and form a larger stream, which is called a brook or creek.
Home Geography For Primary Grades|C. C. Long
After this we crossed two rills called Liñkanda and their sponges, the rills in flood 10 or 12 feet broad and thigh deep.
The Last Journals of David Livingstone, in Central Africa, from 1865 to His Death, Volume II (of 2), 1869-1873|David Livingstone
The rills and burns which trickle down its steep sides become in wet weather foaming cataracts.
Gairloch In North-West Ross-Shire|John H. Dixon, F.S.A. Scot

Watch the rills as they descend a hillside during a rainstorm and just afterward.
Inventors at Work|George Iles

British Dictionary definitions for rills

rill

/ (rɪl) /

noun

a brook or stream; rivulet

a small channel or gulley, such as one formed during soil erosion

Also: rille one of many winding cracks on the moon

Word Origin for rill

C15: from Low German rille; related to Dutch ril

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

Word Origin and History for rills

rill

"small brook, rivulet," 1530s, from or related to Dutch and Frisian ril, Low German rille "groove, furrow, running stream," probably from Proto-Germanic *ril- (cf. Old English rið, riþe "brook, stream," which survives only in dialects), a diminutive form from PIE root *reie- "to run, flow" (see Rhine).