rill
/ɹɪl/
rill noun: a very small brook; a streamlet; a creek, rivulet. Also the alternative form of rille.
Noun
rill (plural rills)
- A very small brook; a streamlet; a creek, rivulet.
- [N]or yet beside the rill / Nor up the lawn, nor at the wood was he1750 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...
- 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. […]...
Verb
rill (third-person singular simple present rills, present participle rilling, simple past and past participle rilled)
- To trickle, pour, or run like a small stream.
- 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 - 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
- And fainter, finer, trickle far
Adjective
rill
- Real.
Also used as
rill is also the alternative form of rille.
Forms of rill
| Noun | |
|---|---|
| plural | rills |
| Verb | |
| third-person singular present | rills |
| present participle | rilling |
| past participle | rilled |
| past | rilled |
Origin of rill
From or akin to West Frisian ril (“rill; a narrow channel”), Dutch ril (“rill; gully; trench; watercourse”), German Low German Rille, Rill (“a small channel; brook; furrow”), German Rille (“a groove; furrow”).
A stylized variant of real prevalent in hip-hop.
Words formed from rill
Words that rhyme with rill
48 more rhymesFewer rhymes
- chill
- drill
- Seville
- will
- skill
- still
- frill
- mil
- sill
- swill
- fulfill
- goodwill
- till
- until
- brazil
- downhill
- prill
- quadrille
- shill
- shrill
- thrill
- Chapel Hill
- jill
- McGill
- nill
- squill
- trill
- uphill
- Walton-on-the-Hill
- Baskerville
- dill
- grille
- he'll
- instill
- Ithkuil
- krill
- manille
- nil
- phil
- purple pill
- refill
- remill
- thill
- twill
- vill
- vril
- 'til
- 'twill
Questions about rill
- What does rill mean?
- Rill means a very small brook; a streamlet; a creek, rivulet.
- What part of speech is rill?
- Rill can be a noun, a verb or an adjective.
- How do you pronounce rill?
- Rill is pronounced /ɹɪl/.
- What is the plural of rill?
- The plural of rill is rills.
Words near rill in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: rill (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
Last updated:
Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-rill.wav.
Cite this entry: “rill.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/rill. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.