rivulet

From Old French riveret (“little stream”).

• IPA^(key): /ˈɹɪv.jə.lət/

rivulet (plural rivulets)

1. A small brook or stream; a streamlet.

   A rivulet of tears ran down his face.

   • (Can we date this quote?) Charles Cotton

     Rills running down the steepest slopes develop into rivulets.

   • 1918, W. B. Maxwell, chapter 23, in The Mirror and the Lamp:

     The struggle with ways and means had recommenced, more difficult now a hundredfold than it had been before, because of their increasing needs. Their income disappeared as a little rivulet that is swallowed by the thirsty ground.

2. Perizoma affinitata, a geometrid moth.

• Blomer's rivulet