ravine

Borrowed from French ravin (“a gully”), from Old French raviner (“to pillage, sweep down, cascade”), from ravine (“robbery, rapine; violent rush of water, waterfall, avalanche; impetuosity, spirit”), from Latin rapīna (cf. rapine).

• enPR: rə-vēnʹ, IPA^(key): /ɹəˈviːn/

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• Rhymes: -iːn

ravine (plural ravines)

1. A deep narrow valley or gorge in the earth's surface worn by running water.
   • 1905, Lord Dunsany [i.e., Edward Plunkett, 18th Baron of Dunsany], The Gods of Pegāna, London: [Charles] Elkin Mathews, […], →OCLC, page 46:

     Sometimes the earth stretched up towards them with peaks of mountains, sometimes it fell away in steep ravines, blue rivers sang to them as they passed above them, or very faintly came the song of breezes in lone orchards, and far away the sea sang mighty dirges of old forsaken isles.

   • 1913, Robert Barr, chapter 3, in Lord Stranleigh Abroad‎:

     He fell into a reverie, a most dangerous state of mind for a chauffeur, since a fall into reverie on the part of a driver may mean a fall into a ravine on the part of the machine.

   • 2007 April 1, Thomas Harlan, The Shadow of Ararat: Book One of 'The Oath of Empire'‎, page 294:

     Thirty feet below her, where the Persians were crashing through the brush, the streambed kinked to the left side of the ravine and ran under an enormous thorn tree with a thick base.

• ravine-buck
• ravined
• ravine deer

• ravinement

• canyon
• gorge
• gulley, gully
• valley

From Middle English ravene, ravine, from Old French raviner (“rush, seize by force”), itself from ravine (“rapine”), from Latin rapīna (“plundering, loot”), itself from rapere (“seize, plunder, abduct”).

• IPA^(key): /ˈɹævɪn/

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ravine (plural ravines)

1. (archaic) Alternative form of raven (“rapine, rapacity; prey, plunder”)
   • 1849, Alfred, Lord Tennyson, In Memoriam A.H.H.:

     And he, shall he,
     Man, her last work, who seem’d so fair, […]
     Who trusted God was love indeed
     And love Creation’s final law—
     Tho’ Nature, red in tooth and claw
     With ravine, shriek’d against his creed—
     Who loved, who suffer’d countless ills,
     Who battled for the True, the Just,
     Be blown about the desert dust,
     Or seal’d within the iron hills?

• ravine on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
• Category:ravines on Wikimedia Commons.Wikimedia Commons
• “ravine”, in OneLook Dictionary Search.

• Averni, Erivan, naiver, naïver, vainer

From the Old French verb raviner (“flow with force; sweep down; pillage, cascade”), or from the noun ravine, raveine (“robbery, rapine; violent rush of water, waterfall, avalanche; impetuosity, spirit”), from Latin rapīna. Doublet of rapine, a borrowing from the same Latin term.

• Homophones: ravinent, ravines

ravine f (plural ravines)

1. a small ravine or gully
2. beginning of a furrowing or formation of a ravine

• ravin
• raviner
• ravinement

ravine

1. inflection of raviner:
   1. first/third-person singular present indicative/subjunctive
   2. second-person singular imperative

• “ravine”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.

From French ravine, from Latin rapīna.

ravine m (definite singular ravinen, indefinite plural raviner, definite plural ravinene)

1. gully (type of ravine)

• “ravine” in The Bokmål Dictionary.
• “ravine” in Det Norske Akademis ordbok (NAOB).

From French ravine, from Latin rapīna.

ravine m (definite singular ravinen, indefinite plural ravinar, definite plural ravinane)

1. gully (type of ravine)

• “ravine” in The Nynorsk Dictionary.