12 ways to say stream
The word stream, a course of water, came to Old English from Germanic languages. Its Proto-Indo-European root meant to flow. Another Proto-Indo-European root meaning to flow gave us the word runnel, a small stream.
But wait…there are more!
The word creek most likely came from an Old Norse word meaning corner or nook. Etymologists believe the word is related to the word crook, originally meaning full of bends & turns. By the 1500s, creek (also pronounced crick) came to mean a small stream or brook.
An Old Norse word meaning stream gave Middle English speakers the word beck. Interestingly, these days we use beck to refer to streams that flow ruggedly over gravel and stones — as many northern European streams do.
Most modern English speakers would label a contest of speed with the word race. This meaning kicked in about 1510. Previous to that, race meant the act of running. Race came from an Old Norse word meaning a rush of water, & that meaning has hung around all these years, which is why in some regions, a stream or creek is referred to as a race.
The word brook, a stream or creek, came to Middle English from an Old English word meaning to use or enjoy.
A stream can also be called a rindle, which came into Old English from Germanic sources used to refer to a brook, stream, runner, or messenger.
About 1300 the word branch appeared in English, meaning division of a stem of a tree or bush. Branch’s meaning almost immediately broadened to mean division or contributing member of anything, including a river or stream. So as long as it merges downstream with another creek or river we can call a creek a branch.
Some English speakers refer to a stream as a burn. This words comes from an Anglo-Saxon word that meant brook or stream, & is the reason many towns or cities near streams end in something like burn, for instance Melbourne, Gisborne, & Blackburn.
A rill is a small brook or stream. This word came to English in the 1530s from one of the Germanic languages, likely coming from a Proto-Indo European word meaning to run or flow.
And last but not least, Northeastern Americans got the word kill (meaning stream), from a Dutch word meaning riverbed or channel, which is why so many streams and creeks in Pennsylvania, New York, & New Jersey are referred to as kills.
I’d love to know which of these surprised you. Comment away.
Big thanks to Sioux Thompson for inspiring this post & to this week’s sources, Merriam Webster, Collins Dictionary, Etymonline, Say Why Do I?, Oxford Dictionaries, & Wordnik.
I have to admit, most of these surprised me. I had no idea there were so many words for running water. But then...we don't tend to have a whole of that around these parts.
ReplyDeleteHa! I suppose I should have divulged that this post was inspired by a conversation with my good pal Sioux last week when I was on the east coast. Thanks for coming by, Christine.
DeleteMany of these words rang distant bells in my memory. As a kid, I was an adventurous reader, and read lots of classics set in odd parts of the British Isles. Anybody else read "Heart of the Midlothian"? And people were always drinking or bathing in kills and rills and rindles. I had no idea what they were. Now I do! This also maybe explains the odd US southern drink called "bourbon and branch." I suppose it must have originally meant bourbon diluted with fresh water from a stream. So you have surprised me with many of these, Mr. Monger!
ReplyDeleteDearest Miss Allen - Thanks for coming by and offering images of bathers dousing themselves in kills, rills, & rindles. Ah, life.
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