riptide

1. 1.

   a stretch of turbulent water in a river or the sea caused by one current flowing into or across another current

   Synonymsriptide ripcrosscurrentcountercurrent

   Broaderturbulence
2. 2.

   a strong surface current flowing outwards from a shore

   Synonymsrip current

   Broadercurrent

   Part oftide

Other forms of riptide

plural

riptides·

Forms marked · are formed by the regular rule rather than recorded in the source data. English keeps a few hundred irregulars and the rest follow the pattern, so the rule is right far more often than not — but it is a rule, and the mark says so.

Questions about riptide

What does riptide mean?

riptide means "a stretch of turbulent water in a river or the sea caused by one current flowing into or across another current". That is the primary sense; the word has 2 in total, listed in full on this page.

How many syllables are in riptide?

riptide has 2 syllables: rip-tide. The stress falls on "rip".

What is another word for riptide?

Close synonyms include rip, tide rip, crosscurrent, countercurrent, rip current. Each sense on this page lists its own synonyms, because a word with several meanings rarely has one substitute that works for all of them.

Is riptide a common word?

riptide is banded "Rare" — specialist or archaic — most readers will not have met it. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.