Dredging up river words

Earlier today I came across a nice, albeit limited [7 words], Glossary of River Words, put together by Merriam-Webster. I know from my own education, training and experience there are more than seven river words, so I got curious about what else might there be. Internet searching revealed that the National Wild and Scenic Rivers web site lacks a glossary of river words, although it does have one for federal acronyms etc. It also has a nice section of River and Environmental Quotations, but I find their interface lacking, to put it mildly.

St. Louis River in Jay Cooke State Park

Photo by J. Harrington

I had higher hopes for the American Rivers web site, but those hopes were dashed. No glossary there that I could find. A United Kingdom site has an expanded (much more than seven words) River Glossary that's part of an overarching "Homework Help" site. The United States Geological Survey has an "unofficial" Dictionary of Water Terms that is both technical and expansive.

Based on very quick reviews, the glossaries I found seemed to lack a number of synonyms for river, such as:

    estuary

    stream

    tributary

    beck

    branch

    brook

    course

    creek

    rill

    rivulet

    run

    runnel

    watercourse

While wandering the backwaters of the internet, looking for resources for this posting on river terms, I fell into a fly fishing glossary, on which I'm now hooked. But, for a very different and fascinating perspective, take a look at the sidebar and follow the link to The Meaning of Water. It's worth the trip.

Locally, see if you can lay your hands on a copy of Thomas F. Waters' The Streams and Rivers of Minnesota, and / or his Wildstream: A Natural History of the Free Flowing River.

If you've read this far, you probably figured out that Norman Maclean is not the only one "haunted by waters."

River

By Mary Oliver

The river

Of my childhood,

That tumbled

Down a passage of rocks

And cut-work ferns,

Came here and there

To the swirl

And slowdown

Of a pool

And I say myself–

Oh, clearly–

As I knelt at one–

Then I saw myself

As if carried away,

As the river moved on.

Where have I gone?

Since then

I have looked and looked

For myself,

Not sure

Who I am, or where,

Or, more importantly, why.

It’s okay–

I have had a wonderful life.

Still, I ponder

Where that other is–

Where I landed,

What I thought, what I did,

What small or even maybe meaningful deeds

I might have accomplished

Somewhere

Among strangers,

Coming to them

As only a river can–

Touching every life it meets–

That endlessly kind, that enduring.

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