rive

• (UK, General American) IPA^(key): /ɹaɪv/

• Audio (US)

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• Rhymes: -aɪv

From Middle English riven (“to rive”), of North Germanic origin, from Old Norse rífa (“to rend, tear apart”), from Proto-Germanic *rīfaną (“to tear, scratch”), from Proto-Indo-European *h₁reyp- (“to crumble, tear”).

Cognate with Danish rive (“to tear”), Old Frisian rīva (“to tear”), Old English ārǣfan (“to let loose, unwrap”), Old Norse ript (“breach of contract, rift”), Norwegian Bokmål rive (“to tear”), Swedish riva (”to tear”) and Albanian rrip (“belt, rope”). More at rift.

rive (third-person singular simple present rives, present participle riving, simple past rived or rove or rave, past participle rived or riven)

1. (transitive, archaic except in past participle) To tear apart by force; to rend; to split; to cleave.
   • 1599 (first performance), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Iulius Cæsar”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act I, scene iii]:

     I have seen tempests, when the scolding winds / Have rived the knotty oaks […]

2. (transitive, archaic) To pierce or cleave with a weapon.
   • 1485, Sir Thomas Malory, “vj”, in Le Morte Darthur, book II:

     And therwith she toke the swerd from her loue that lay ded and fylle to the ground in a swowne / And whan she aroos she made grete dole out of mesure / the whiche sorowe greued Balyn passyngly sore / and he wente vnto her for to haue taken the swerd oute of her hād but […] sodenly she sette the pomell to the ground / and rofe her self thorow the body

     (please add an English translation of this quotation)

3. (intransitive) To break apart; to split.
   • 1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book II, Canto VI”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC:

     The varlet at his plaint was grieu'd so sore, / That his deepe wounded hart in two did riue […].

   • 1728, John Woodward, An Attempt towards a Natural History of the Fossils of England:

     Freestone i.e. that rives, splits, and breaks in any direction.

   • 2012, David W. Phillipson, Foundations of an African Civilisation. Aksum & the northern Horn, 1000 BC–AD 1300, Woodbridge, Suffolk: James Currey, page 10:

     To the west, the country descends more gradually to the extensive plains of the Nile Valley but is riven by the rugged valleys of the Takezze and other Nile tributaries.

   • 2021 October 20, Angie Doll explains to Paul Clifton, “We were absolutely at rock bottom...”, in RAIL, number 942, page 34:

     The company was riven by strikes. Years later, the dispute with the RMT union over driver operation of train doors has still not formally been resolved.

   • 2023 September 12, Patrick Wintour, “‘Disastrous beyond comprehension’: 10,000 missing after Libya floods”, in The Guardian‎, →ISSN:

     Oil-rich Libya has been riven by political infighting, corruption and external interference since a 2011 uprising that toppled and later led to the death of the longtime ruler Muammar Gaddafi.

4. (transitive, rare) To burst open; explode; discharge.
   • 1821, William Shakespeare, James Boswell, Richard Farmer, The Plays and Poems of William Shakespeare:

     Ten thousand French have ta'en the sacrament, To rive their dangerous artillery

5. (woodworking) To use a technique of splitting or sawing wood radially from a log (e.g. clapboards).

• (to rend asunder): cleave, rend, split

• rave hook
• riving knife

• rip
• rib

rive (plural rives)

1. A place torn; a rent; a rift.

• (a place torn): rent, rift

Compare Latin ripa (“shore”)

This etymology is incomplete. You can help Wiktionary by elaborating on the origins of this term.

rive (plural rives)

1. A bank or shore.

rive

1. To land.

• Iver, iver, vier, vire

• IPA^(key): /riːvə/, [ˈʁiːʋə], [ˈʁiːʊ]

From Old Norse hrífa, derived from the verb Old Norse hrífa (“to grip”), from Proto-Germanic *hrībaną (“to grip, snatch”).

rive c (singular definite riven, plural indefinite river)

1. rake

From Old Norse rífa, from Proto-Germanic *rīfaną, cognate with Swedish riva, English rive. In the sense, "to rake", it is derived from the noun.

rive (past tense rev, past participle revet, common gender attributive reven, plural or definite attributive revne)

1. to grate
2. to scratch, tear, rip
3. to rake

Probably from Swedish drev.

• IPA^(key): /ˈriʋeˣ/, [ˈriʋe̞(ʔ)]
• Rhymes: -iʋe
• Syllabification^(key): ri‧ve

rive

1. oakum, tow

• revi, veri, vire

Inherited from Old French, from Latin rīpa, from Proto-Indo-European *rey- (“to cut, tear, scratch”).

• IPA^(key): /ʁiv/

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rive f (plural rives)

1. bank (of a river)

• arriver
• dériver
• rivage
• rivière

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

• ivre, vire, viré

From Latin rīpa.

rive f (plural rivis)

1. slope, ascent
2. shore

• rivâ
• riviere

From French arriver (“arrive”).

• IPA^(key): /ɣive/

rive

1. to arrive, to get to
2. to happen

• IPA^(key): /ˈri.ve/
• Rhymes: -ive
• Hyphenation: rì‧ve

rive f

1. plural of riva

• ervi, veri

rīve

1. vocative singular of rīvus

• rive in Charles du Fresne du Cange’s Glossarium Mediæ et Infimæ Latinitatis (augmented edition with additions by D. P. Carpenterius, Adelungius and others, edited by Léopold Favre, 1883–1887)

From Old Norse hrífa.

• IPA^(key): /ˈɾiːʋə/

rive f or m (definite singular riva or riven, indefinite plural river, definite plural rivene)

1. a rake (garden and agricultural tool)

From Old Norse rífa.

• IPA^(key): /ˈɾiːʋə/

rive (imperative riv, present tense river, passive rives, simple past rev or reiv, past participle revet, present participle rivende)

1. to grate + av
2. to scratch, tear, rip + av

• løsrive
• rivjern

• “rive” in The Bokmål Dictionary.

From Old Norse hrífa.

rive f (definite singular riva, indefinite plural river, definite plural rivene)

1. a rake (garden and agricultural tool)

rive (present tense riv, past tense reiv, supine rive, past participle riven, present participle rivande, imperative riv)

1. Alternative form of riva

• “rive” in The Nynorsk Dictionary.