Ripple, Rithe, River: Origins, Forms, Histories of Words Meaning River, Lake

The natural features of a region are its topography (Greek topos, "place"). Rivers, lakes, and related bodies of freshwater are important types of topographic features.

In the current alphabetic series of words that name such freshwater features, here are the origins, forms, and histories of ripple, rithe, and river. The dates of forms and meanings come from the Oxford English Dictionary and Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary.

Ripple
The noun ripple (18th century) comes from the verb ripple ("to flow in small waves," 17th century), perhaps a frequentative of rip ("to tear apart," 15th century), probably from Flemish rippen ("to strip off roughly").

A shallow stretch of running water in a stream roughened or broken by a rocky or uneven bottom is a ripple (1755). The word also applies to the ruffling itself on the surface of the water, or to a little individual wavelet.

Rithe
Rithe goes all the way back to Old English rithe (before 12th century). The word is akin to Dutch ril ("small stream") and Low German rille ("small stream").

Rithe is a dialectal word in England for a small stream, or a rivulet (c. 9th century).

River
Modern English river comes from Middle English river (15th century) and rivere (14th century), from Old French rivere, from (assumed) Vulgar Latin riparia, from Latin riparia, the feminine of riparius ("riparian"), from ripa ("bank, shore").

A natural stream of water of usually considerable volume is a river (14th century).

The flow of a river is determined by the difference between the input and the output of water. Rivers receive water by land-surface runoff, groundwater seepage, and meltwater from the edges of snowfields and glaciers. Direct precipitation contributes only a small amount of water. Rivers lose water by evaporation, percolation into rocks or sand, and outflow into the ocean.

Below are some commonly used terms incorporating the word river.

Riverbank (1565). The bank of a river.

Riverbed (1833). The channel occupied by a river.

Riverfront (1855). The land or area along a river.

Riverine. As an adjective, the word means relating to, formed by, or resembling a river (1860). As a noun, the word denotes the banks or vicinity of a river (1895).

Riverside (14th century). The side, or bank, of a river.

Riverward (1833). An adverb or adjective meaning toward a river.
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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.