Other forms: rills
A rill is a small brook. A rill in the grass, follow the rill, the sound of a rill.
It is smaller than a stream and larger than a trickle, and the word is chiefly poetic in English. In geology, rill erosion is the first stage of losing a field's topsoil, when rain cuts small channels across bare ground.
1nounrillA small brook.
“A little rill ran down the hillside and into the pond.”
rill is a stream.
Also accepted in games: rivulet
Related to Dutch and Low German words for a small channel, entering English in the sixteenth century.
Built from
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”).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA