ravine

noun

1. 1

   A deep narrow valley or gorge in the earth's surface worn by running water.

   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.

   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.

   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.

noun

1. 1

   Variant of ravinarchaicAlternative spelling of ravin.

   And sure since we were borne, / Ruine of one ravine, was there none gretter: […]

   [H]e [Odo of Bayeux] had […] by rauine and extortion, raked together greate maſſes of Golde and treaſure, whiche he cauſed to be grounde into fine pouder, and (filling therewith dyuers pottes and crockes) had ſounk them in the Bottomes of Riuers, intending therwithall to haue purchaſed the Papacie of Rome: […]

   [T]he rage and furie of the barbarous nations brake out into a flaming fire: and like as vvild beaſts, vvont to live of ravine and prey vvhen keepers be ſlacke and negligent, […] vvithout regard of life, run upon vvhole heards and flockes of cattell: […]

   The marvellous ſpeedy grovvth of Birds that are hatched in Neſts, and fed by the Old ones there, […] ſeems to me an Argument of Providence deſigning thereby their preſervation, that they might not lie long in a condition expoſed to the ravine of any Vermine that may find them, being utterly unable to eſcape or ſhift for themſelves.

adjective

1. 1

   Variant of ravinobsoleteObsolete spelling of ravin.

   […] I am the cauſe / His death vvas ſo effected: Better 'tvvere / I met the rauine Lyon vvhen he roar'd / VVith ſharpe conſtraint of hunger: better 'tvvere, / That all the miſeries vvhich nature ovves / VVere mine at once.

verb

1. 1

   Variant of ravinarchaicAlternative spelling of ravin.

   As God was able to ſaue the bodies of his ſeruantes, that they were not hurt in the fire, as he was able to keepe Ionas ſafe, in the whales bellie: ſo can he preſerue our bodies in the earth. Yea, much better, becauſe the fire naturally conſumeth, and the fiſhes bellie deſtroieth thoſe things which they rauine: but the earth naturally preſerueth that which is earthie.

   [I]t is his [Satan's] Maſtery to ſpread an unſeen venome in the Bovvels, thence to diffuſe its ſelf through't, mix vvith the vital ſpirit, and convert that kindly heat vvhich ſhould animate, into thoſe vvild irregular flames vvhich ravine and conſume.

Forms

plural

ravines

comparative

more ravine

superlative

most ravine

past tense

ravined

past participle

ravined

present participle

ravining

third person singular

ravines