rivulet

From Italian rivoletto, diminutive of rivolo (“trickle, little stream”), diminutive of rivo (“stream, brook, creek”), ultimately from Latin rīvulus, diminutive of rīvus. By surface analysis, Latin rīvus +‎ -ule +‎ -et.

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ˈɹɪv.jʊ.lɪt/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /ˈɹɪv.jə.lət/

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rivulet (plural rivulets)

1. A small stream; a streamlet; a gill.

   A rivulet of tears ran down his face.

   • 1777, Richard Brinsley Sheridan, The School for Scandal, I.i:

     Yes Madam I think you will like them—when you shall see in a beautiful Quarto Page how a neat rivulet of Text shall meander thro' a meadow of margin—'fore Gad, they will be the most elegant Things of their kind—

   • 1918, W[illiam] B[abington] Maxwell, chapter XXIII, in The Mirror and the Lamp, Indianapolis, Ind.: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, →OCLC:

     The struggle with ways and means had recommenced, more difficult now a hundredfold than it had been before, because of their increasing needs. Their income disappeared as a little rivulet that is swallowed by the thirsty ground.

   • 1945, Charles Cotton, Geomorphology: An Introduction to the Study of Landforms:

     Rills running down the steepest slopes develop into rivulets.

2. Perizoma affinitatum, a geometrid moth.

• (small brook or stream): rill

• Blomer's rivulet

• rival

• “rivulet”, in OED Online ⁠, Oxford: Oxford University Press, launched 2000.
• “rivulet”, in Merriam-Webster.com Online Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster, 1996–present.
• Douglas Harper (2001–2026), “rivulet”, in Online Etymology Dictionary.
• “rivulet”, in The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, 5th edition, Boston, Mass.: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2016, →ISBN.