Europe
- See also Old European hydronymy.
- Avon: Brythonic meaning "river"
- Avonbeg: Irish meaning "small river"
- Avonmore: Irish meaning "big river"
- Awbeg: Irish meaning "small river"
- River Boyne: Irish river goddess Boann, "white cow"
- Cam: Brythonic meaning "crooked"
- Clanrye: Irish meaning "harbour of the king"
- Clwyd: Welsh meaning "hurdle"
- Danube: Latin Danuvius, Dacian: Donaris, from Iranian (Scythian or Sarmatian) dānu- 'river', of Indo-European origin
- Argeş: from Greek or maybe Thracian arges = "bright"
- Bistriţa: Slavic "bistra" = "clear"
- Caraş: Turkish "kara" = "black", "dark"
- Drave: in Latin "Dravus", of Thracian or Illyrian origin, probably from PIE *dhreu = "to flow, to fall"
- Ialomiţa: Slavic "jalov" = "infertile"
- Prahova: Slavic "prag"="waterfall" or "prah"="dust"
- Siret: ancient Thracian "Seretos", probably from PIE *sreu = "to flow"
- Don (Aberdeenshire, Scotland): from Celtic Devona 'goddess'
- Emajõgi: Estonian meaning "mother river"
- Erne: Irish after the name of the mythical princess, Éirne
- Foyle: Irish meaning "estuary of the lip"
- Guadalquivir: from the Arabic wadi al-kabir, or "great river"
- Hayle: from Cornish Heyl "estuary"
- Kymijoki: Old Finnish for kymi, "huge river"
- Lagan: Irish meaning "river of the low-lying district"
- Llobregat: from Latin Rubricatus "red river"
- Mersey: Anglo Saxon meaning "boundary river"
- Narva: Veps after "rapid" or "falls"
- Quoile: Irish meaning "the narrow"
- Rhine: from the archaic German Rhine, which in turn comes from Middle High German: Rin, from the Proto-Indo-European root *reie- ("to flow, run").
- The Reno River in Italy shares the same etymology.
- River Severn: Latin "Sabrina" from an Old British river goddess of that name, becoming "Hafren" in modern Welsh
- River Somer
- Slaney: Irish meaning "river of health"
- Thames: Latin "Tamesis" from Brythonic meaning "dark river"
- The River Thame and River Tamar, and probably the three rivers called River Tame, have a similar etymological root
- Tyne: Brythonic meaning "river"
- Torne älv: Likely of Finnish origin, meaning "spear"
- Volga River: Slavic влага "vlaga", волога "vologa" meaning "wetness", "humidity"; alternatively, Proto-Uralic *valki- "white"; alternatively, Russian velikij "great"
- Wear: Brythonic meaning "water"
Read more about this topic: List Of River Name Etymologies
Famous quotes containing the word europe:
“The people of Western Europe are facing this summer a series of tragic dilemmas. Of the hopes that dazzled the last twenty years that some political movement might tend to the betterment of the human lot, little remains above ground but the tattered slogans of the past.”
—John Dos Passos (1896–1970)
“What helps it now, that Byron bore,
With haughty scorn which mock’d the smart,
Through Europe to the Aetolian shore
The pageant of his bleeding heart?
That thousands counted every groan,
And Europe made his woe her own?”
—Matthew Arnold (1822–1888)
“Europe has lived on its contradictions, flourished on its differences, and, constantly transcending itself thereby, has created a civilization on which the whole world depends even when rejecting it. This is why I do not believe in a Europe unified under the weight of an ideology or of a technocracy that overlooked these differences.”
—Albert Camus (1913–1960)