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ripple

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Etymology and origin of the English word ripple

Pronunciation

  • /ˈɹɪp(ə)l/[1]

ripple1 flax comb

Confidence
Probable
Formation
Inherited
First attested
c. 1350
Inherited from
Middle English riplen

Etymology

The flax comb and its verb are inherited from Middle English riplen (“to ripple flax”) and repylle, also ryppyll,[2][3] words the OED treats as inherited from Germanic.[4] They correspond to West Frisian ripelje and ripel (“flax comb”), Middle Dutch repelen and Dutch repel (recorded from 1695), Middle Low German repelen and rēpele, and Old High German riffilōn, which glosses Latin serrō (“to saw”), with riffila (“sharp-toothed tool, probably a saw or rake”), the source of German Riffel and riffeln.[4][5][2][6][7] The OED derives the noun from a zero-grade form of the Germanic base of reap with the suffix -el,[4] and Klein likewise relates the verb to Old English repan (“to reap”).[6]

Earliest recorded meaning

To draw flax or hemp through a toothed comb to strip off its seeds: about 1350, the OED's first record of the verb.[4][5] The noun, a toothed or hooked tool, follows about 1425, in a translation of Guy de Chauliac's Grande Chirurgie;[4] Dictionary.com dates it to 1425–75.[8]

Semantic evolution

From the late 15th century, in Henryson's translation of Aesop's fables, the verb was also used of the seeds themselves, to remove them from flax or hemp, now usually with off.[4][5] A rippler, one who ripples flax, is recorded from the mid 18th century.[5] Collins dates the word to the 14th century,[9] and Weekley lists it as a technical term.[7]

Timeline

  • c. 1350 – verb, to strip flax or hemp of its seeds with a comb.[4]
  • c. 1425 – noun, a toothed tool, especially a flax comb.[4]
  • late 15th century – to remove seeds from flax, often with off.[4][5]
  • mid 18th century – rippler.[5]

Meanings

Noun

  1. A large comb-like tool with teeth, used to strip the seeds from flax or hemp.[2][4][5]

Verb

  1. To clean flax or hemp of its seeds by drawing it through such a comb.[2][4][5]
  2. To remove seeds from flax or hemp in this way, often with off.[2][4][5]

Word family

  • rippler

ripple2 small wave

Confidence
Uncertain
Formation
Derivation
First attested
1614 T. Lodge's translation of Seneca's Naturall Questions
Ultimate origins
Middle English rippenEnglish -le
Etymology tree of ripple2
inherited borrowed derived
English rip
English ripple

Etymology

The small wave is of uncertain origin.[4][5][10][11][8] The verb is perhaps formed from English rip + -le, with reference to the quick movement of ripples,[4][12][13][2][9][7] and Etymonline and Klein compare rumple, Klein also riffle.[12][6] The OED also considers a transferred use of the northern dialect verb meaning "to scratch slightly", from the scratched look of the water's surface;[4] that verb is probably of Scandinavian origin, compare Norwegian dialect ripla (“to scratch, score”) and repa.[4][5][2] Barnhart and Etymonline begin the history with riplen (“to wrinkle, crease”), recorded before 1425,[13][12] which the MED glosses as to wrinkle or to scratch.[14] The noun is formed from the verb.[4][5][12][13]

Earliest recorded meaning

Of the sea or a stretch of water, to have a ruffled or crinkled surface, at first with a somewhat threatening sense: 1614, in T. Lodge's translation of Seneca.[4][2] Weekley found it first in the 17th century, of stormy or dangerous agitation of water, often in Hakluyt and Purchas.[7] The Shorter Oxford and the Oxford Dictionary of English date the verb to the late 17th century,[5][10] and Barnhart finds it implied in the noun rippling in 1669.[13]

Semantic evolution

Johnson (1755) defined the verb as "to fret on the surface, as water swiftly running".[15] From 1769, in Gray, it meant to flow in ripples; from 1786 it was also used transitively, of a breeze ruffling the surface of water.[4][12] The noun began in American English in 1755, for a stretch of shallow water in a river ruffled by rocks or sandbars.[4][13][11] The sense "small wave" is recorded in the OED from 1785,[4] in Barnhart and Etymonline from Coleridge's Rime of the Ancient Mariner (1798).[13][12] From the 19th century the word spread to anything that resembles a ripple: the verb to movement passing in waves (1800) and to light, lively sound (1816, in Byron),[4] the noun to wavy forms (1843) and to figurative effects spreading outwards from a source (1838, in Emerson),[4][12][13] and to the sound of talk or laughter (1857).[4] Geology took up ripple mark for the wavy ridges left on sand by water or wind, by 1833 in Etymonline.[12][4] In science it became a wave controlled by surface tension (1871) and small variations in an electric voltage (1903).[4] From 1939 it was also a kind of ice cream streaked with coloured syrup, named from its look,[4][12] and ripple effect, a spreading series of consequences, is recorded from 1950.[12]

Timeline

  • before 1425 – riplen, to wrinkle, crease, according to Barnhart and Etymonline.[13][12]
  • 1614 – of water, to have a ruffled surface.[4][2]
  • 1755 – noun, US, a stretch of shallow, ruffled water in a river.[4][13][2]
  • 1769 – to flow in ripples.[4]
  • 1785 – a light ruffling of water; a small wave.[4]
  • 1786 – transitive, to ruffle the surface of water.[4][12]
  • 1798 – a small wave, in Coleridge.[13][12]
  • 1816 – of sound, to flow lightly.[4]
  • 1857 – a rising and falling sound, as of laughter.[4]
  • 1871 – physics, a wave controlled by surface tension.[4]
  • 1903 – electronics, small variations in voltage.[4]
  • 1939 – ripple ice cream.[4][12]
  • 1950 – ripple effect.[12]

Meanings

Noun

  1. A small wave or a light ruffling on the surface of water.[9][2][4]
  2. A wavy form like this, as in hair, fabric or sand.[9][4][5]
  3. A sound that rises and falls like gently moving water: A ripple of applause ran round the hall.[9][4][5]
  4. An effect that spreads gradually outward from a cause.[4][5]
  5. (US) A shallow stretch of a stream where the water runs broken over rocks or a sandbar; a riffle.[2][4][9]
  6. (electronics) A small oscillation superimposed on a steady voltage.[9][4]
  7. (physics) A small surface wave driven mainly by surface tension.[2][4][5]
  8. Ice cream with streaks of coloured syrup running through it.[4][12]

Verb

  1. To form small waves or undulate lightly; to flow with a rippling movement: The lake rippled in the breeze.[9][2][4]
  2. To cause small waves on a surface, or to give something a wavy look.[9][4][5]
  3. To spread or pass through something in waves: Rumours rippled through the office.[4][5]
  4. Of sound, to rise and fall lightly.[4][5]

Word family

  • ripplet
  • ripply
  • rippleless
  • ripplingly
  • unrippled
  • ripple effect
  • ripple mark

Usage notes

Several dialect words share the spelling: a verb meaning "to scratch slightly, graze", of Scandinavian origin and used in Scotland and northern England;[4][5][2][16] a noun for a strip of land or a copse, recorded from late Old English to 1847[4] and in Herefordshire for a small thicket;[16] the ripples, a Scots name for a pain or disease of the back and loins;[16][5] and, in Warwickshire, Shropshire and Herefordshire, the movable side rails of a cart.[16]

References

  1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
  3. ^ Mayhew, A. L.; Skeat, Walter W. (1888), A Concise Dictionary of Middle English from A.D. 1150 to 1580, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
  5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
  6. ^ a b c Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
  7. ^ a b c d Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
  8. ^ a b Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
  9. ^ a b c d e f g h i Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
  10. ^ a b Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
  11. ^ a b Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  12. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
  13. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
  14. ^ Kurath, Hans; Kuhn, Sherman M.; Lewis, Robert E., eds. (1952–2001), Middle English Dictionary, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press; online edition ed. Frances McSparran et al. (2000–2018)
  15. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
  16. ^ a b c d Wright, Joseph, ed. (1898–1905), The English Dialect Dictionary, 6 vols., Oxford: Henry Frowde; via EDD Online 4.0, University of Innsbruck (CC BY 4.0)
Cite this entry

“Ripple.” Etymologically, 31 Oct. 2026, etymologically.com/en/ripple. Accessed 31 Oct. 2026.

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