rive
Americanverb (used with object)
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to tear or rend apart.
to rive meat from a bone.
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to separate by striking; split; cleave.
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to rend, harrow, or distress (the feelings, heart, etc.).
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to split (wood) radially from a log.
verb (used without object)
verb
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to split asunder
a tree riven by lightning
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to tear apart
riven to shreds
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archaic to break (the heart) or (of the heart) to be broken
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of rive
1225–75; Middle English riven < Old Norse rīfa to tear, split. See rift
Vocabulary lists containing rive
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
Though she did not hang out with the bohemians and intellectuals of the rive gauche, there was nevertheless something about her persona that chimed with the romantic existentialism of the time.
From The Guardian • Apr. 29, 2018
You never put your foot in the same rive twice.
From New York Times • Nov. 28, 2017
“Per le spiagge, per le rive di Trieste,” he began, singing the opening lines of “The Bells of Saint Giusto,” a patriotic World War I paean to Italy’s victory against—and Trieste’s independence from—Austria-Hungary.
From The Wall Street Journal • Dec. 3, 2015
And they gathered in pity and fear, for they faced a problem that might rive their church to its foundations.
From Time Magazine Archive
Weakness! and worse, weakness bestow'd in vain Winds from our side the unsuiting consort rive, We rush by coasts where we had lief remain; Man cannot, though he would, live chance's fool.
From Poetical Works of Matthew Arnold by Arnold, Matthew
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
