rive

present singular third person rives · participle present riving · past rived · past rove · past rave · participle past rived · participle past rove · participle past rave · participle past riven

1. transitivearchaic except in past participleTo tear apart by force; to rend; to split; to cleave.

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

   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]

   Synonyms: cleave, rend, split

2. archaictransitiveTo pierce or cleave with a weapon.

   2 more examples

   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

   1485, Sir Thomas Malory, “vj”, in Le Morte Darthur, book II

   And the sword that had visited Earth from so far away smote like the falling of thunderbolts [...] and the runes in Alveric’s far-travelled sword exulted, and roared at the elf-knight; until in the dark of the wood, amongst branches severed from disenchanted trees, with a blow like that of a thunderbolt riving an oak-tree, Alveric slew him.

   1924, Lord Dunsany, chapter III, in The King of Elfland's Daughter, New York: G.P. Puttnam's Sons, page 30

3. intransitiveTo break apart; to split.

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

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

   4 more examples

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

   1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book II, Canto VI”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC

   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.

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

   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.

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

   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.

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

4. raretransitiveTo burst open; explode; discharge.

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

   1821, William Shakespeare, James Boswell, Richard Farmer, The Plays and Poems of William Shakespeare

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

plural rives

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

   Synonyms: rent, rift

plural rives

1. A bank or shore.

1. To land.

plural Rives

1. A surname from French.