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
- unrived adjective
Etymology
Origin of rive
1225–75; Middle English riven < Old Norse rīfa to tear, split. See rift
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
His Roxbury studio resembled a tinker's shop more than some rive gauche atelier; wire and pliers and corrugated cartons filled with the flotsam of a lifetime lay about in splendid I-know-just-where-it-is disarray.
From Time Magazine Archive
I wouldna care if ye were to rive horse and beast and a' from me now.
From The Northern Iron by Birmingham, George A.
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.
