TRIBUTARY • E-FREE TRANSLATION.COM • Definition of Tributary

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/trˈɪbjətˌɛri/ Listen

noun

Tributary n. (pl. tributaries)

A ruler or state that pays tribute, or a stated sum, to a conquering power, for the purpose of securing peace and protection, or as an acknowledgment of submission, or for the purchase of security.

A stream or river flowing into a larger river or into a lake; an affluent.

adjective

Tributary adj.

Paying tribute to another, either from compulsion, as an acknowledgment of submission, or to secure protection, or for the purpose of purchasing peace. "(Julius) unto Rome made them tributary."

Hence, subject; subordinate; inferior. "He to grace his tributary gods."

Paid in tribute. "Tributary tears."

Yielding supplies of any kind; serving to form or make up, a greater object of the same kind, as a part, branch, etc.; contributing; as, the Ohio has many tributary streams, and is itself tributary to the Mississippi.

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Etymology of 'Tributary'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Tributary" Quotes from Famous Books

... Brussels, and Antwerp. These five powerful cities lie in a narrow circle, at distances varying from six miles to thirty, and are, as it were, strung together upon the Scheldt, by which river, or its tributary, the Senne, they are all threaded. It would have been impossible for Parma, with 100,000 men at his back, to undertake a regular and simultaneous siege of these important places. His purpose was to isolate them from each ...

— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... of single families, but have, and had, long degenerated into poor lodgings let off in rooms. Entering at the open door of one of these, and releasing my arm, she beckoned me to follow her up the common staircase, which was like a tributary channel to the street. ...

— David Copperfield • Charles Dickens

... Jack across the foam Puts forth to meet the Gallic foe, His tributary tear for home He wipes away with a Yow-heave-ho! Man the braces, Take your places, Fill the tot and push the can; He's a lubber That would blubber When ...

— The Mayor of Troy • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... that you can make with your dress is to make no impression at all; but so to harmonize its material and shape with your personality that it becomes tributary in the general effect, and so exclusively tributary that people cannot tell after seeing you what ...

— Mother's Remedies - Over One Thousand Tried and Tested Remedies from Mothers - of the United States and Canada • T. J. Ritter

... year Demosthenes did another service to the cause of national freedom. Rhodes, severed by its own act from the Athenian Confederacy, had since 355 been virtually subject to Mausolus, prince ([Greek: dynasts]) of Caria, himself a tributary of Persia. Mausolus died in 351, and was succeeded by his widow Artemisia. The democratic party in Rhodes now appealed to Athens for help in throwing off the Carian yoke. Demosthenes supported their application ...

— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 8, Slice 2 - "Demijohn" to "Destructor" • Various

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