rill

See also: Rill

English

Etymology

From 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

  • IPA(key): /ɹɪl/
    Rhymes: -ɪl

Noun

rill (plural rills)

  1. A very small brook; a streamlet.
    • 1751 Thomas Gray, Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard:
      ...nor yet beside the rill,
      Nor up the lawn, nor at the wood was he
    • 1797, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Kubla Khan:
      So twice five miles of fertile ground
      With walls and towers were girdled round:
      And there were gardens bright with sinuous rills,
      Where blossomed many an incense-bearing tree;
      And here were forests ancient as the hills,
      Enfolding sunny spots of greenery.
  2. (planetology) Alternative form of rille.

Derived terms

Translations

Verb

rill (third-person singular simple present rills, present participle rilling, simple past and past participle rilled)

  1. 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;

Irish

Etymology

Verb

rill (present analytic rilleann, future analytic rillfidh, verbal noun rilleadh, past participle rillte)

  1. (transitive) riddle, sieve, sift
  2. (transitive) pour (as from sieve)

Conjugation

Derived terms

  • rilleán m (riddle, coarse sieve)

Further reading

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