River

How to spell river

5 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce river

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does river mean?

1. nounA large natural stream of water that flows toward a sea, lake, or another stream.

River in a sentence

• The bridge spans a wide river near the town centre.

• Heavy rain caused the river to burst its banks overnight.

Where does river come from?

Language of origin: French

The word comes from the Old French rivere, meaning a riverbank or a stretch of water flowing along a bank, which English adopted in the early 1300s. That French word descends from the Latin riparia, an adjective meaning 'of the riverbank', built on ripa, which literally meant 'bank' or 'shore'. So the original idea fastened onto the edge of the water rather than the water itself, and only later did the sense settle on the flowing stream we mean today. The same Latin ripa survives in the English word 'riparian', used by ecologists for plants and habitats along a watercourse, and it also lurks in 'arrive', which once meant to come to shore. Because the spelling reflects this French and Latin descent, the unstressed second syllable is simply '-er', not the '-or' or '-ar' that occasionally tempts writers.

How the word is built

• riv- (from Latin ripa: bank, shore)
• -er (noun suffix via Old French)