ravine

Pronunciation

• enPR: rə-vēnʹ, IPA^(key): /ɹəˈviːn/

• Audio (US):

  (file)

• Rhymes: -iːn

Noun

ravine (plural ravines)

1. A deep narrow valley or gorge in the earth's surface worn by running water.
   • 1905, Lord Dunsany [i.e., Edward Plunkett, 18th Baron of Dunsany], The Gods of Pegāna, London: [Charles] Elkin Mathews, […], →OCLC, page 46:

     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.

   • 1913, Robert Barr, chapter 3, in Lord Stranleigh Abroad‎:

     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.

   • 2007 April 1, Thomas Harlan, The Shadow of Ararat: Book One of 'The Oath of Empire'‎, page 294:

     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.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈɹævɪn/

  • Audio (Southern England):

    (file)

Noun

ravine (plural ravines)

1. (archaic) Alternative form of raven (“rapine, rapacity; prey, plunder”)
   • 1849, Alfred, Lord Tennyson, In Memoriam A.H.H.:

     And he, shall he,
     Man, her last work, who seem’d so fair, […]
     Who trusted God was love indeed
     And love Creation’s final law—
     Tho’ Nature, red in tooth and claw
     With ravine, shriek’d against his creed—
     Who loved, who suffer’d countless ills,
     Who battled for the True, the Just,
     Be blown about the desert dust,
     Or seal’d within the iron hills?

Related terms

• ravin
• raviner
• ravinement