RIVET
What does "RIVET" mean?
A short metal pin used to join two pieces of material, hammered or pressed flat at the unheaded end.
Meanings
- A metal fastener with a head, set through holes in plates and bucked over to bind them. The bridge's girders are held by thousands of steel rivets.
- To fasten or fix with rivets. Workers riveted the hull plates together.
- To hold someone's complete attention; to fix immovably. The audience sat riveted through the final act. figurative
Did you know?
- The Titanic was held together by about three million rivets, and metallurgists later argued that weak, slag-laden iron rivets at the bow helped the ship fail so catastrophically in 1912.
Word origin
From Middle English, via Old French 'river' (to fix, clinch), perhaps from Old Norse 'rifa' (to seam or join).
Remember it
RIVET = it RIVETs your eyes when you can't look away; the metal pin and the spellbinding both 'fix' you in place.
A little poem
Hammer falls, the head goes flat-
two cold plates forget they were ever two.
Now only fire could part them.
tercet
Wordplay
- The riveting documentary held us together - which is, technically, its entire job.
What it teaches
What truly holds things together is rarely the loud part - it's the small pin no one notices until it fails.
Quick facts
What does RIVET mean?
A short metal pin used to join two pieces of material, hammered or pressed flat at the unheaded end.
Is RIVET a valid word?
Yes — RIVET is one of the answer words in Wordul, the daily word game.
How many letters is RIVET?
RIVET has 5 letters and 2 syllables.
Where does RIVET come from?
From Middle English, via Old French 'river' (to fix, clinch), perhaps from Old Norse 'rifa' (to seam or join).
What can RIVET teach us?
What truly holds things together is rarely the loud part - it's the small pin no one notices until it fails.
How players do
Be the first to solve it.