entry
river
/ˈrɪvər/A natural watercourse flowing toward another body
From Latin, from Romance transmission rip-/riv- (Riverbank).
from Proto-Indo-European *h₁reyp- (“to scratch, tear, cut”). Unrelated to Latin rīvus (“stream”) (whence rival,...
from Vulgar Latin *riparia "riverbank, seashore, river" (source also of Spanish ribera , Italian riviera ), noun use of...
+1 more sourcefrom Vulgar Latin *riparia "riverbank, seashore, river" (source also of Spanish ribera , Italian riviera ), noun use of...
+1 more sourcefrom Anglo-French rivere , Old French riviere "river, riverside, river bank" (12c.)
from Middle English ryver
from Anglo-French rivere , Old French riviere "river, riverside, river bank" (12c.)
Word Ancestry
from Proto-Indo-European *h₁reyp- (“to scratch, tear, cut”). Unrelated to Latin rīvus (“stream”) (whence rival,...
from Vulgar Latin *riparia "riverbank, seashore, river" (source also of Spanish ribera , Italian riviera ), noun use of...
+1 more sourcefrom Vulgar Latin *riparia "riverbank, seashore, river" (source also of Spanish ribera , Italian riviera ), noun use of...
+1 more sourcefrom Anglo-French rivere , Old French riviere "river, riverside, river bank" (12c.)
from Middle English ryver
from Anglo-French rivere , Old French riviere "river, riverside, river bank" (12c.)
English once had a perfectly good native word for a river: ēa. Then, sometime around the thirteenth century, French-speaking influence carried in rivere, from a Latin word meaning “riverbank” or “shore.” The change is a small geographical shift with a big result: instead of naming the water itself, the word first pointed to the land beside it, the edge where earth meets moving water. That same family still glitters in Riviera, the sunny coast, and in riparian, the textbook adjective for life along a river. There is also a tempting but disputed Germanic connection with rive, “to tear,” perhaps because a river seems to cut its way through the landscape; either way, remember the image: river is a word born at the torn edge of the land, where water keeps worrying the earth open.
The Story
English once had a perfectly good native word for a river: ēa. Then, sometime around the thirteenth century, French-speaking influence carried in rivere, from a Latin word meaning “riverbank” or “shore.” The change is a small geographical shift with a big result: instead of naming the water itself, the word first pointed to the land beside it, the edge where earth meets moving water. That same family still glitters in Riviera, the sunny coast, and in riparian, the textbook adjective for life along a river. There is also a tempting but disputed Germanic connection with rive, “to tear,” perhaps because a river seems to cut its way through the landscape; either way, remember the image: river is a word born at the torn edge of the land, where water keeps worrying the earth open.
Kin & Kindred
From 'rip-/riv-'·Riverbank, shore; later a flowing watercourse
Cognates
Related words in other languages
Derived Terms
English words from this root
Sources
Etymonline
Urban Dictionary
Wikipedia
Wiktionary