ravine
/ɹəˈvin/
Word Rarity
Rare
Frequency: Zipf frequency 3.15 in modern English
9
Scrabble Score
6
Letters
2
Syllables
6
Unique Chars
Meaning
noun
A deep narrow valley or gorge in the earth's surface worn by running water.
Example Sentences
- "Sometimes the earth stretched up towards them with peaks of mountains, sometimes it fell away in steep ravines, blue rivers sang to them as they passed above them, or very faintly came the song of breezes in lone orchards, and far away the sea sang mighty dirges of old forsaken isles."
- "He fell into a reverie, a most dangerous state of mind for a chauffeur, since a fall into reverie on the part of a driver may mean a fall into a ravine on the part of the machine."
- "Thirty feet below her, where the Persians were crashing through the brush, the streambed kinked to the left side of the ravine and ran under an enormous thorn tree with a thick base."
- "And sure since we were borne, / Ruine of one ravine, was there none gretter: […]"
- "[H]e [Odo of Bayeux] had […] by rauine and extortion, raked together greate maſſes of Golde and treaſure, whiche he cauſed to be grounde into fine pouder, and (filling therewith dyuers pottes and crockes) had ſounk them in the Bottomes of Riuers, intending therwithall to haue purchaſed the Papacie of Rome: […]"
- "[T]he rage and furie of the barbarous nations brake out into a flaming fire: and like as vvild beaſts, vvont to live of ravine and prey vvhen keepers be ſlacke and negligent, […] vvithout regard of life, run upon vvhole heards and flockes of cattell: […]"
Etymology
Origin
- Source language: French
Word Breakdown
Regional Pronunciation
- American English: /ɹəˈvin/
- British English: /ɹəˈviːn/
Usage
Inflected Forms
ravines (plural)
more ravine (comparative)
most ravine (superlative)
ravines (present, singular)
ravining (participle, present)
ravined (participle, past)
ravined (past)