English
river
see also: River
Pronunciation
  • (RP) IPA: /ˈɹɪvə/
  • (America) enPR: rĭv'ər, IPA: /ˈɹɪvɚ/
Noun

river (plural rivers)

  1. A large and often winding stream which drains a land mass, carrying water down from higher areas to a lower point, oftentimes ending in another body of water, such as an ocean or in an inland sea.
    • 1908, Kenneth Grahame, The Wind in the Willows
      By the side of the river he trotted as one trots, when very small, by the side of a man who holds one spell-bound by exciting stories; and when tired at last, he sat on the bank, while the river still chattered on to him, a babbling procession of the best stories in the world, sent from the heart of the earth to be told at last to the insatiable sea.
    Occasionally rivers overflow their banks and cause floods.
  2. Any large flow of a liquid in a single body.
    a river of blood
  3. (poker) The last card dealt in a hand.
  4. (typography) A visually undesirable effect of white space running down a page, caused by spaces between words on consecutive lines happening to coincide.
Related terms Verb

river (rivers, present participle rivering; past and past participle rivered)

  1. (poker) To improve one’s hand to beat another player on the final card in a poker game.
    Johnny rivered me by drawing that ace of spades.
Pronunciation
  • (RP) IPA: /ˈɹaɪvə/
  • (America) IPA: /ˈɹaɪvɚ/
Noun

river (plural rivers)

  1. One who rives or splits.
River
Proper noun
  1. A unisex given name.
    • 2002 December 13, Joss Whedon, Firefly, season 1, episode 14, Objects in Space:
      Wash: Little River gets more colorful by the moment. What'll she do next?
      Zoe: Either blow us all up or rub soup in our hair. It's a toss-up.
      Wash: I hope she does the soup thing, it's always a hoot and we don't all die from it.
    • 2011 April 30, Steven Moffat, Doctor Who, series 6, episode 2, Day of the Moon:
      The Doctor: Oh, this is my friend River. Nice hair, clever, and has her own gun. And unlike me, she really doesn't mind shooting people. I shouldn't like that. Kinda do, a bit.
    • 2017, Carrie Keagan, Dibs Baer, Everybody Curses, I Swear!: Uncensored Tales from the Hollywood Trenches, Macmillan (ISBN 9781250026200), page 131:
      Apparently, early in the day, a journalist had decided to bring up his brother River Phoenix's death in his interview, which threw him off and trainwrecked the day for everyone, including me.
  2. (rare) Surname


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