Other forms: tributaries
A tributary is a smaller river that feeds into a larger one. A tributary of the Thames, join as a tributary, the main tributary.
Every river is a tree of them, and the point where one joins is a confluence. The word once meant a state paying tribute to a greater power, and the river sense borrows exactly that picture of the small paying into the great.
1nountributaryA smaller river that feeds into a larger one.
“The river is fed by several small tributaries that flow down from the mountains.”
tributary is a river.
Latin tributarius means paying tribute, from tributum, a tax paid to a ruler.
Proto-Indo-European
*tréyes
Latin
tribūtārius
Middle English
tributarie — paying tribute
English, today
tributary
Built from
From Middle English tributarie (“paying tribute”), from Latin tribūtārius, from tribūtum (“tribute”).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA