ripple

plural ripples

1. A moving disturbance, or undulation, in the surface of a fluid.

   I dropped a small stone into the pond and watched the ripples spread.

   2 more examples

   What seamen call the "ripples" are also very violent in the straits, the sea appearing to boil and foam and dance like the rapids below a cataract; vessels are swept about helplessly, and small ones are occasionally swamped in the finest weather and under the brightest skies.

   1869, Alfred Russel Wallace, The Malay Archipelago, volume I, London: Macmillan and Co., page 239

   Ripples in the water betray the presence of the fish waiting for a chance to pounce on the insects skirting over the water.

   2009, Helen Oon, “New Territories”, in Hong Kong (Globetrotters Travel Guide), New Holland Publishers, →ISBN, page 80

2. One of a series of corrugations in flat surface.

   The ebbing tide had left ripples in the sand.

3. A sound similar to that of undulating water.
4. A style of ice cream in which flavors have been coarsely blended together.

   I enjoy fudge ripple ice cream, but I especially like to dig through the carton to get at the ripple part and eat only that.

5. businessA small oscillation of an otherwise steady signal.
6. figurativelyA small spreading change, impact, or effect produced by a larger or more consequential action.

   Investments in research, deployment and scaling existing technologies are the initial ripples that will have to build to a groundswell of further action.

   2025 September 11, Kate Marvel, “‘We’ve done it before’: how not to lose hope in the fight against ecological disaster”, in The Guardian

present singular third person ripples · participle present rippling · participle past rippled · past rippled

1. intransitiveTo move like the undulating surface of a body of water; to undulate.

   Synonyms: ruffle

2. intransitiveTo propagate like a moving wave.

   These problems were complicated by a foreign exchange crunch which rippled through the economy in 1961-1962, […]

   2008, Bradley Simpson, Economists with Guns, page 65

3. intransitiveTo make a sound as of water running gently over a rough bottom, or the breaking of ripples on the shore.
4. transitiveTo shape into a series of ripples.
5. transitiveTo launch or unleash in rapid succession.

   Hearns' 'Mech rippled fifteen missiles. Austen watched the missiles go in. They smashed into a copse of trees, smashing the trunks aside.

   2019, Jason M. Hardy, Phaedra M. Weldon, Herbert A. Beas II, BattleTech: Weapons Free: BattleCorps Anthology, Volume 3

present singular third person ripples · participle present rippling · participle past rippled · past rippled

1. transitiveTo scratch, tear, or break slightly; graze

   An horsemans javelin[…]having slightly rippled the skinne of his left arme, pierced within his short ribs.

   1609, Ammianus Marcellinus, translated by Philemon Holland, The Roman Historie, […], London: […] Adam Jslip, →OCLC

plural ripples · alternative reeple · alternative riple

1. businessAn implement, with teeth like those of a comb, for removing the seeds and seed vessels from flax, broom corn, etc.

present singular third person ripples · participle present rippling · participle past rippled · past rippled · alternative reeple · alternative riple

1. To remove the seeds from (the stalks of flax, etc.), by means of a ripple.

plural ripples

1. dialectalhistoricalthripple, cart ladder (extension for cart or wagon)

plural Ripples

1. countableuncountableA village and civil parish in Dover district, Kent, England (OS grid ref TR3450).
2. countableuncountableA village and civil parish in Malvern Hills district, Worcestershire, England (OS grid ref SO8737).
3. countableuncountableA surname.