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Etymology and origin of the English word rivet

The OED and the Shorter Oxford separate the metal fastening from the wheat, whose name is of unknown origin.[1][2]

Pronunciation

  • /ˈɹɪvət/[3]

rivet1 metal fastening

Confidence
Established
Formation
Borrowing
First attested
1392 Sources of London English
Borrowed from
Old French rivet via Middle English
Ultimate origin
Old French river

Etymology

The fastening is inherited from Middle English rivette, also revette and ryvette,[4][5] borrowed from Old French rivet (“short pin or bolt”),[1][6][7][8] recorded in French from 1260 and in Anglo-Norman from the 13th century.[1][9] Earlier currency is suggested by medieval Latin rivettus, from 1234.[1] The French noun is formed from river (“to clinch, fasten”) with the suffix -et.[1][2] The origin of that verb is disputed: the OED derives it from rive in the sense "rim, margin, edge",[1] as Weekley did from the word for a bank,[10] while Etymonline, Barnhart and Klein suggest Middle Dutch wrīven (“to turn, grind”), which Etymonline relates to rive,[6][11][12] and Klein denies any link with the French verb meaning "to land".[12] Skeat derived it from Old Norse rífa (“to tack, sew loosely together”),[13] and Hoad, the Oxford Dictionary of English and Collins call it of unknown origin.[7][14][15] Etymonline adds that English may have taken the noun directly from Middle Dutch,[6] which the OED instead treats as itself a borrowing from French.[1] The verb, riveten, comes from the noun,[1][16][6] though medieval Latin has rivettare earlier, from 1312, and the French verb riveter is not recorded until 1877.[1]

Earliest recorded meaning

A fastening in which the end of a nail or bolt is hammered back: 1392–3, in a London record.[1] Etymonline dates this sense to about 1300.[6] Barnhart cites an Anglo-Latin record of 1358–59, but the OED cannot say whether that record and one of 1295 show the English, the French or the Latin noun.[11][1]

Semantic evolution

The first sense, the clinch of a nail, gave way to the pin or bolt that is fastened in that way, recorded from before 1450.[1][6][2] The verb followed the same path, from securing a nail by beating out its end (before 1450, in Generides: "The nales he reueted wele") to fastening things with rivets (about 1450).[1][16] Shakespeare's Henry V has armourers "with busy hammers closing rivets up".[17] The verb became figurative in 1597, and by 1600 it meant fixing a thing so that it could not move.[1] The sense "to command the attention" is first found in Hamlet: "For I mine eyes will rivet to his Face".[6][1][11] It was applied to the eyes or the mind first, then from 1762 to the person whose attention is held,[1] and the adjective riveting, spellbinding, dates from 1854.[11] Rivet was also a light armour in 1548–55, the same as almain rivet,[1][2] a verb "to marry" in Congreve (1700),[1] and in the plural slang for money from about 1835.[1]

Timeline

  • 1392 – the clinch of a nail or bolt (obsolete by 1775).[1]
  • before 1450 – a short pin or bolt.[1] Etymonline dates it to about 1400.[6]
  • before 1450 – verb, to clinch a nail by hammering its end.[1][16]
  • c. 1450 – verb, to fasten with rivets.[1][16]
  • 1548 – a kind of light armour (until 1555).[1]
  • 1597 – verb, in figurative use.[1]
  • 1600 – verb, to fix immovably.[1]
  • 1603 – verb, to fix the eyes or mind; to engross the attention.[1] Barnhart dates Hamlet to 1602.[11]
  • 1665 – noun, in figurative use.[1]
  • 1762 – verb, to hold the attention of a person.[1]
  • c. 1835 – plural, slang for money.[1]
  • 1854 – the adjective riveting, spellbinding.[11]

Meanings

Noun

  1. A short metal pin or bolt that joins pieces of material, its plain end being hammered or pressed into a second head after it has passed through them.[15][4][1]
  2. (slang, now rare) In the plural, money.[1]
  3. (obsolete, 1392–1775) The turned-over and hammered end of a nail or bolt; a clinch.[1][2]

Verb

  1. To join or fasten with rivets: The crew riveted the steel plates to the hull.[15][4][1]
  2. To hammer the end of a pin or bolt into a head.[15][4][1]
  3. To fix firmly in place, so that a thing cannot move: Fear riveted the boy to the doorstep.[15][1]
  4. To hold the attention of someone completely; to engross, usually in the passive: The whole town was riveted by the trial.[15][1][4]

Word family

  • riveter
  • riveting
  • rivetless
  • unrivet

rivet2 wheat

Confidence
Unknown
First attested
1580 Tusser

Etymology

The wheat has a name of unknown origin.[1][2] The OED compares the regional plural rivels, recorded in the same sense in Cumberland, Bedfordshire, Hertfordshire and Kent.[1]

Earliest recorded meaning

A variety of the wheat Triticum turgidum: 1580, in Tusser's Five Hundred Points of Good Husbandry.[1][2]

Semantic evolution

The word stayed a farmers' term, in the plural from 1763 as an English regional use.[1] The English Dialect Dictionary records it for the bearded wheat in the Lake District, Bedfordshire, Hertfordshire, East Anglia and Kent, and quotes a Bedfordshire report of 1813 that it was then little used.[18] The Shorter Oxford calls the wheat now little grown.[2]

Timeline

  • 1580 – a variety of wheat, also rivet wheat.[1][2]
  • 1763 – plural, rivets, in regional use.[1]

Meanings

Noun

  1. A bearded kind of wheat, Triticum turgidum, also called cone wheat; now little grown.[1][2][18]

Word family

  • rivet wheat
  • rive

Usage notes

A third noun rivet, the liver of a fish, was in use from 1530 to 1737; it too is of unknown origin, and the OED compares earlier refet.[1]

References

  1. ^ 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 Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
  3. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  4. ^ a b c d e Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
  5. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
  6. ^ a b c d e f g h Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
  7. ^ a b Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  8. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
  9. ^ Anglo-Norman Dictionary (AND2), Aberystwyth University, anglo-norman.net (2nd ed., 2005–)
  10. ^ Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
  11. ^ a b c d e f Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
  12. ^ a b Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
  13. ^ Skeat, Walter W. (1911), A Concise Etymological Dictionary of the English Language, new ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
  14. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
  15. ^ a b c d e f Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
  16. ^ a b c d 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)
  17. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
  18. ^ a b 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)

Related etymologies

Cite this entry

“Rivet.” Etymologically, 5 Nov. 2026, etymologically.com/en/rivet. Accessed 6 Nov. 2026.

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