rill

plural rills

1. A very small brook; a streamlet; a creek, rivulet.

   [N]or yet beside the rill / Nor up the lawn, nor at the wood was he

   1750 June 12 (date written; published 1751), T[homas] Gray, “Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard”, in Designs by Mr. R[ichard] Bentley, for Six Poems by Mr. T. Gray, London: […] R[obert] Dodsley, […], published 1753, →OCLC

   5 more examples

   So twice five miles of fertile ground / With walls and towers were girdled round: / And here were gardens bright with sinuous rills, / Where blossom'd many an incense-bearing tree; / And here were forests ancient as the hills, / And folding sunny spots of greenery.

   1797, S[amuel] T[aylor] Coleridge, “Kubla Khan: Or A Vision in a Dream”, in Christabel: Kubla Khan, a Vision: The Pains of Sleep, London: […] John Murray, […], by William Bulmer and Co. […], published 1816, →OCLC, pages 55–56

   The secret of success lies never in the amount of money, but in the relation of income to outgo; as if, after expense has been fixed at a certain point, then new and steady rills of income, though never so small, being added, wealth begins.

   1860, R[alph] W[aldo] Emerson, “Essay III. Wealth.”, in The Conduct of Life, Boston, Mass.: Ticknor and Fields, →OCLC, page 101

   Sago trees here cover the mountain side, instead of growing as usual in low swamps; but a closer examination shows that they grow in swampy patches, which have formed among the loose rocks that cover the ground, and which are kept constantly full of moisture by the rains, and by the abundance of rills which trickle down among them.

   1869, Alfred Russel Wallace, The Malay Archipelago, volume II, London: Macmillan and Co., page 89

   "Most of them don't wash. Those who do usually plunge their head into some brook or rill, if there happens to be one about."

   1936, Norman Lindsay, The Flyaway Highway, Sydney: Angus and Robertson, page 53

   Light grew, and lo! the Company passed through another gateway, high-arched and broad, and a rill ran out beside them; and beyond, going steeply down, was a road between sheer cliffs, knife-edged against the sky far above.

   1955, J.R.R. Tolkien, The Return of the King

2. alternativeastronomyAlternative form of rille.

present singular third person rills · participle present rilling · participle past rilled · past rilled

1. To trickle, pour, or run like a small stream.

   Alladad Khan was panting hard, soaked in sweat, and his rolled-up sleeve was all blood, blood rilling down his arm.

   1956, Anthony Burgess, Time for a Tiger (The Malayan Trilogy), published 1972, page 158

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   And fainter, finer, trickle far To where the listening uplands are; To pause—then from his gurgling bill Let the warbled sweetness rill, And down the welkin, gushing free, Hark the molten melody;

   1862, Gerard Manley Hopkins, Il Mystico, 81-86

1. slangAfrican-American VernacularReal.