n.
- a large natural flow of water travelling along a channel to the sea, a lake, or another river.
▸used in names of animals and plants living in or associated with rivers, e.g. river dolphin.
- a large quantity of a flowing substance.
Phrase
- sell someone down the river
informal betray someone.
[orig. with ref. to the sale of a troublesome slave to a plantation owner on the lower Mississippi, where conditions were relatively harsher.]
- up the river
N. Amer. informal to or in prison.
[with allusion to Sing Sing prison, situated up the Hudson River from the city of New York.]
Derivative
- rivered adj.
- riverless adj.
History
River comes via Old French rivere from Latin riparius, from ripa ‘bank of a river’. It is related to arrive, which originally meant ‘bring a ship to shore’. It is also connected to the word rival, which derives from Latin rivalis, originally meaning ‘person using the same stream as another’, from rivus ‘stream’. Riviera, an Italian word ultimately derived from Latin ripa, preserves the original meaning of ‘land next to water’.
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