runnel

plural runnels · alternative rinel · alternative rindle

1. A small stream, a rivulet.

   Spring, is ye comen in, / Dappled larke singe, / Snow melteth, / Runnel pelteth, / Smelleth wind of newe buddinge.

   1892 March, “Mother Talks—A Spring Walk”, in Cora L. Stockham, Andrea Hofer, editors, The Kindergarten Magazine […], volume IV, number VII, Chicago, Ill.: Kindergarten Publishing Company, →OCLC, page 471, column 2

   2 more examples

   Every little runnel in the bay was astir, and yet the land around him was as dry as flax, and no drop of rain had fallen.

   1902, John Buchan, The Outgoing of the Tide

   […] great chambers in the rock where all sorts of plants were growing, under windows which had been cut to let in the sun, and glazed to adjust his warmth, and where runnels of water ran between fruit trees and seedlings, pumpkin plants and herbs.

   1998, A. S. Byatt, Elementals: Stories of Fire and Ice, Chatto & Windus

2. A small artificial channel for water to flow in.

   1 more example

   Still lower down the slope, on a staircase by the Eastern Bastion, there is an elaborate piece of hydraulic science for checking the flow of water. A stone runnel is made to descend the stairs in a series of parabolic curves which would subject the water to friction, and thus reduce its velocity and the consequent danger of a flood on the pavement below.

   1907, Ronald M. Burrows, The Discoveries In Crete, page 9

present singular third person runnels · US participle present runneling · UK participle present runnelling · US participle past runneled · US past runneled · UK participle past runnelled · UK past runnelled · alternative rinel · alternative rindle

1. To create channels for directing the flow of liquid.

   Not all saltmarshes are suited to habitat modification, but where they are, runnelling provides long-term and cost-effective control with minor non-target impacts.

   2009, Neil Saintilan, Australian Saltmarsh Ecology, →ISBN, page 176

   1 more example

   2014, Paul Salopek, Blessed. Cursed. Claimed., National Geographic (December 2014)https://web.archive.org/web/20150212214621/http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2014/12/pilgrim-roads/salopek-text The people who settled here weren’t farmers. They hunted. Yet they built a large amphitheater of mud, a platform carefully runneled to carry liquid—possibly blood.