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A runnel is a very small stream, or a thin path that water flows along — rain in a little groove on a path, a tiny brook down a hill, a narrow channel. You will almost only see this word in books and poems. In ordinary talk people say stream, or trickle, or gutter. Though actually, it can name the channel itself, not only the water in it, so a dry runnel is still a runnel. It is an old, rather literary word, and using it in the street would sound like you had out of a poem. Nobody will laugh at you, but they may need a second to catch it.
細流、小水溝（書面、詩裡較常見；口語多說小溪、水流）
組成From Middle English, from Old English rynel, “that which runs; a stream,” from an old Germanic word, equal to run + -el (a small-thing ending). Old cousins in Scots and Swedish also mean a small stream.
同家族的字
- runthe same old piece: water runs, and a runnel is a little run of water
原始詞典資料3 筆記錄
以下是外部詞典記錄的用法，原文照列，我們還沒有寫成教學內容。上面的說明才是我們自己寫的；有些用法可能上面已經講過了。
runnelnoun/ˈɹʌnəl/
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A small stream, a rivulet.
- Spring, is ye comen in, / Dappled larke singe, / Snow melteth, / Runnel pelteth, / Smelleth wind of newe buddinge.
- Every little runnel in the bay was astir, and yet the land around him was as dry as flax, and no drop of rain had fallen.
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A small artificial channel for water to flow in.
- Still lower down the slope, on a staircase by the Eastern Bastion, there is an elaborate piece of hydraulic science for checking the flow of water. A stone runnel is made to descend the stairs in a series of parabolic curves which would subject the water to friction, and thus reduce its velocity and the consequent danger of a flood on the pavement below.
runnelverb/ˈɹʌnəl/
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To create channels for directing the flow of liquid.
- Not all saltmarshes are suited to habitat modification, but where they are, runnelling provides long-term and cost-effective control with minor non-target impacts.
- 2014, Paul Salopek, Blessed. Cursed. Claimed., National Geographic (December 2014)https://web.archive.org/web/20150212214621/http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2014/12/pilgrim-roads/salopek-text The people who settled here weren’t farmers. They hunted. Yet they built a large amphitheater of mud, a platform carefully runneled to carry liquid—possibly blood.
資料來源：英文維基詞典 English Wiktionary（CC BY-SA 4.0）。 原文照列，未經改寫。