• (British, America) IPA: /ɹaɪv/

rive (rives, present participle riving; past rived, past participle rived)

1. (transitive, archaic except in past participle) To tear apart by force; to rend; to split; to cleave.
   • 1599, William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Ivlivs Cæsar”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies: Published According to the True Originall Copies (First Folio), London: Printed by Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, OCLC 606515358 ↗, [Act I, scene iii]:

     I have seen tempests, when the scolding winds / Have rived the knotty oaks{{...}

2. (transitive, archaic) To pierce or cleave with a weapon.
   • 1485, Sir Thomas Malory, [http://quod.lib.umich.edu/c/cme/MaloryWks2/1:4.6?rgn=div2;view=fulltext chapter vj], in Le Morte Darthur, book II:

     And therwith she toke the swerd from her loue that lay ded and fylle to the ground in a swowne / And whan she aroos she made grete dole out of mesure / the whiche sorowe greued Balyn passyngly sore / and he wente vnto her for to haue taken the swerd oute of her hād but […] sodenly she sette the pomell to the ground / and rofe her self thorow the body

3. (intransitive) To break apart; to split.
   • 1590, Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queen, II.vi:

     The varlet at his plaint was grieu'd so sore, / That his deepe wounded hart in two did riue […].

   • Freestone rives, splits, and breaks in any direction.

4. (transitive, rare) To burst open; explode; discharge.
   • 1821, William Shakespeare, ‎James Boswell, ‎Richard Farmer, The Plays and Poems of William Shakespeare:

     Ten thousand French have ta'en the sacrament, To rive their dangerous artillery

5. (woodworking) To use a technique of splitting or sawing wood radially from a log (e.g. clapboards).

• (to rend asunder) cleave, rend, split

• German: aufreißen

• German: (etwas) spalten

rive (plural rives)

1. A place torn; a rent; a rift.

• (a place torn) rent, rift

rive (plural rives)

1. A bank or shore.

1. To land.