ripple

• (UK, US) IPA^(key): /ˈɹɪp(ə)l/

• Audio (US):

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ɪpəl

From an alteration of rimple.

ripple (plural ripples)

1. A moving disturbance, or undulation, in the surface of a fluid.

   I dropped a small stone into the pond and watched the ripples spread.

   • 1869, Alfred Russel Wallace, The Malay Archipelago, volume I, London: Macmillan and Co., page 239:

     What seamen call the "ripples" are also very violent in the straits, the sea appearing to boil and foam and dance like the rapids below a cataract; vessels are swept about helplessly, and small ones are occasionally swamped in the finest weather and under the brightest skies.

   • 2009, Helen Oon, “New Territories”, in Hong Kong (Globetrotters Travel Guide)‎^[1], New Holland Publishers, →ISBN, page 80:

     Ripples in the water betray the presence of the fish waiting for a chance to pounce on the insects skirting over the water.

2. One of a series of corrugations in flat surface.

   The ebbing tide had left ripples in the sand.

3. A sound similar to that of undulating water.
4. A style of ice cream in which flavors have been coarsely blended together.

   I enjoy fudge ripple ice cream, but I especially like to dig through the carton to get at the ripple part and eat only that.

5. (electronics) A small oscillation of an otherwise steady signal.
6. (figurative) A small spreading change, impact, or effect produced by a larger or more consequential action.
   • 2025 September 11, Kate Marvel, “‘We’ve done it before’: how not to lose hope in the fight against ecological disaster”, in The Guardian‎^[2]:

     Investments in research, deployment and scaling existing technologies are the initial ripples that will have to build to a groundswell of further action.

ripple (third-person singular simple present ripples, present participle rippling, simple past and past participle rippled)

1. (intransitive) To move like the undulating surface of a body of water; to undulate.

   Synonym: ruffle

2. (intransitive) To propagate like a moving wave.
   • 2008, Bradley Simpson, Economists with Guns, page 65:

     These problems were complicated by a foreign exchange crunch which rippled through the economy in 1961-1962, […]

3. (intransitive) To make a sound as of water running gently over a rough bottom, or the breaking of ripples on the shore.
4. (transitive) To shape into a series of ripples.
5. (transitive) To launch or unleash in rapid succession.
   • 2019, Jason M. Hardy, Phaedra M. Weldon, Herbert A. Beas II, BattleTech: Weapons Free: BattleCorps Anthology, Volume 3:

     Hearns' 'Mech rippled fifteen missiles. Austen watched the missiles go in. They smashed into a copse of trees, smashing the trunks aside.

From Middle English *ripelen, repulen, equivalent to rip +‎ -le (frequentative suffix).

ripple (third-person singular simple present ripples, present participle rippling, simple past and past participle rippled)

1. (transitive) To scratch, tear, or break slightly; graze
   • 1609, Ammianus Marcellinus, translated by Philemon Holland, The Roman Historie, […], London: […] Adam Jslip, →OCLC:

     An horsemans javelin […] having slightly rippled the skinne of his left arme, pierced within his short ribs.

• “ripple”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.

Compare German Low German Repel, Dutch repel, German Riffel, extended forms (with instrumental or diminutive -le) of Low German Repe (“ripple”), Dutch repe (“ripple”). Compare also Dutch repen, German reffen, Swedish repa (“to beat; ripple”).

The verb is from Middle English ripplen, rypelen. Compare Low German repelen, Dutch repelen, German riffeln.

• reeple, riple

ripple (plural ripples)

1. (textiles) An implement, with teeth like those of a comb, for removing the seeds and seed vessels from flax, broom corn, etc.

• hackle, brake, scutch, swingle

ripple (third-person singular simple present ripples, present participle rippling, simple past and past participle rippled)

1. To remove the seeds from (the stalks of flax, etc.), by means of a ripple.

Dialectal form of thripple.

ripple (plural ripples)

1. (dialectal, historical) thripple, cart ladder (extension for cart or wagon)

• → Welsh: riplen, riblen

• Prilep, Rippel