fluvial

adjective

flu·​vi·​al ˈflü-vē-əl 

1

: of, relating to, or living in a stream or river

2

: produced by the action of a stream

a fluvial plain

Examples of fluvial in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

The major exception has been the fluvial deposits of central Java, which have yielded remarkable tools and fossils of H. erectus. —Smithsonian Magazine, 7 Feb. 2025

Related article Massive sinkhole threatens to swallow West Virginia police department Takashi Oguchi, a geographer from the University of Tokyo, said sinkholes are rare in Japan, where most roads are built on unconsolidated fluvial and marine sediments. —Yumi Asada, Chris Lau and Minori Konishi, CNN, 31 Jan. 2025

Such declines could also wreck fluvial ecosystems sustained by shallow underground water, including the wetlands and rivers on which millions of Africans depend for fish and other resources. —Fred Pearce, WIRED, 9 Mar. 2024

There will be others, like a fluvial clock marking time the way a river system might. —Longreads, 9 Feb. 2024

The lightning speed of thought transference among them is par with their smooth choreography – a fluvial transition of personal relationships into professional ones. —Tanu I. Raj, Billboard, 15 July 2022

Hama Soor led the group along a path that skirted both the main road and the factory, following a fluvial terrace and entering, by way of a cemetery, a village at the base of the mountains. —New York Times, 20 Apr. 2022

BDAs are certainly not a replacement for beavers, notes Joe Wheaton, a fluvial geomorphologist at Utah State University and one of the scientists who developed the analogues. —Isobel Whitcomb, Scientific American, 7 Feb. 2022

The firm gave the house a variety of fluvial touches in a nod to the river’s winding, serpentine-like path through Riverside, including winding side rails on the staircase and winding designs on the kitchen cabinets. —Jade Yan, chicagotribune.com, 12 Aug. 2021

Word History

Etymology

Middle English, from Latin fluvialis, from fluvius river, from fluere

First Known Use

14th century, in the meaning defined at sense 1

Rhymes for fluvial

• pluvial
• alluvial
• colluvial
• diluvial