Chute, Confluence, Course: Origins, Forms, Histories of Words Meaning River, Lake

The natural features of a region are its topography (Greek topos, "place").

Rivers, lakes, and similar freshwater bodies are among the most important topographic features of a region. Many words relating to freshwater features have little-known meanings and/or colorful etymologies.

In the current alphabetic series of such terms, here are the origins, forms, and histories of chute, confluence, and course. The dates of forms and meanings come from the Oxford English Dictionary and Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary.

Chute
Chute entered English in the early 19th century from French and Old French chute, the feminine of chu, the past participle of cheoir ("to fall"), from Latin cadere ("to fall"). A variant spelling is shute (19th century).

Chute (1805) denotes a waterfall, especially a precipitous one; in this sense, the word is usually used in the plural form but with either a singular or a plural construction. Another meaning of chute is more general: any quick descent in a river, that is, a rapid.

Confluence
Confluence entered English in the 15th century from Late Latin confluentia ("act of flowing together"), from Latin confluent-, a combining form of confluens, the present participle of confluere ("to flow together"), from com- ("together") and fluere ("to flow").

The original meaning of confluence is the flocking together of people, or the crowd of people who are flocked together (15th century).

Soon the same idea was applied to bodies of water. A confluence is the flowing together of two or more streams (1538), the place where two or more streams unite (1538), and the combined new stream or body of water formed by the union of two or more streams (1615).

Course
Modern English course comes from Middle English course (14th century) and cours (13th century), from Old French course and cours, from Latin cursus, from currere ("to run").

The original meaning of course is the act of moving from point to point (13th century). The path of such movement also came to be called a course (14th century).

One such path-related use of the word course is a channel, natural or artificial, in which water flows, that is, a watercourse (1665). This sense of the word has been extended to refer to the water itself in a water-carrying course, such as a river, a brook, or an underground stream.
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Encyclopaedia Britannica Ready Reference 2004. CD-ROM. Encyclopaedia Britannica, 2004.

Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary. 11th ed. Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster, 2006.

Merriam-Webster's Geographical Dictionary. 3rd ed. Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster, 2007.

The Oxford English Dictionary. 2nd ed. Oxford, England: Clarendon Press, 1989.