Rivers
- LarryYitzroch Loiza Grossberg, 1923–2002, U.S. painter.
- William Halse [hawls] /hɔls/, 1865–1922, English physiologist and anthropologist.
river1
- a natural stream of water of fairly large size flowing in a definite course or channel or series of diverging and converging channels.
- a similar stream of something other than water: a river of lava; a river of ice.
- any abundant stream or copious flow; outpouring: rivers of tears; rivers of words.
- (initial capital letter) Astronomy. the constellation Eridanus.
- Printing. a vertical channel of white space resulting from the alignment in several lines of spaces between words.
- sell down the river, to betray; desert; mislead: to sell one's friends down the river.
- up the river, Slang.
- to prison: to be sent up the river for a bank robbery.
- in prison: Thirty years up the river had made him a stranger to society.
Origin of river1
river2
- a person who rives.
Origin of river2
Examples from the Web for rivers
Contemporary Examples
Hitchcock was our mountains and our rivers, curled permanently into our brainpans.
They seemed like a permanent part of the mindscape, the way mountains or rivers are part of the physical world.
But who cleans lakes and streams and rivers and makes them fishable and swimmable again?
Democrats Are Petrified of Defending Government—but They Need to StartMichael Tomasky
December 4, 2014
Near the confluence of these two rivers a tiny bridge spans the gap connecting the Korengal with the Pech.
Heart of Darkness: Into Afghanistan’s Taliban ValleyMatt Trevithick, Daniel Seckman
November 15, 2014
Then again some comics like Rivers, Essman and Behar are blunt in their discussion of sexism.
Historical Examples
Mesopotamia, therefore, meant a stretch of land "between the rivers."
Ancient ManHendrik Willem van Loon
Just think of the Hippopotamus, the horse or "hippos" that lives in the rivers.
Ancient ManHendrik Willem van Loon
Commerce crowds our rivers and rails, our skies, harbors, and highways.
They fished out our rivers and swept up the game like fire in the forest.
The Trail BookMary Austin
All the mountains, and rivers, and forests—all the people in the world?
Green MansionsW. H. Hudson
Rivers
- a state of S Nigeria, in the Niger river delta on the Gulf of Guinea. Capital: Port Harcourt. Pop: 5 185 400 (2006). Area: 11 077 sq km (4277 sq miles)
river
- a large natural stream of fresh water flowing along a definite course, usually into the sea, being fed by tributary streams
- (as modifier)river traffic; a river basin
- (in combination)riverside; riverbed Related adjectives: fluvial, potamic
- any abundant stream or flowa river of blood
- sell down the river informal to deceive or betray
- the river poker slang the fifth and final community card to be dealt in a round of Texas hold 'em
Word Origin
Word Origin and History for rivers
river
n.
early 13c., from Anglo-French rivere, Old French riviere "river, riverside, river bank" (12c.), from Vulgar Latin *riparia "riverbank, seashore, river" (cf. Spanish ribera, Italian riviera), noun use of fem. of Latin riparius "of a riverbank" (see riparian). Generalized sense of "a copious flow" of anything is from late 14c. The Old English word was ea "river," cognate with Gothic ahwa, Latin aqua (see aqua-). Romanic cognate words tend to retain the sense "river bank" as the main one, or else the secondary Latin sense "coast of the sea" (cf. Riviera).
U.S. slang phrase up the river "in prison" (1891) is originally in reference to Sing Sing prison, which was literally "up the (Hudson) river" from New York City. Phrase down the river "done for, finished" perhaps echoes sense in sell down the river (1851), originally of troublesome slaves, to sell from the Upper South to the harsher cotton plantations of the Deep South.
river
- A wide, natural stream of fresh water that flows into an ocean or other large body of water and is usually fed by smaller streams, called tributaries, that enter it along its course. A river and its tributaries form a drainage basin, or watershed, that collects the runoff throughout the region and channels it along with erosional sediments toward the river. The sediments are typically deposited most heavily along the river's lower course, forming floodplains along its banks and a delta at its mouth.
Idioms and Phrases with rivers
river
see sell down the river; up the river.