Library / English Dictionary

RIVET

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

 I. (noun) 

Sense 1

Meaning:

Heavy pin having a head at one end and the other end being hammered flat after being passed through holes in the pieces that are fastened together

Classified under:

Nouns denoting man-made objects

Hypernyms ("rivet" is a kind of...):

pin (a small slender (often pointed) piece of wood or metal used to support or fasten or attach things)

Meronyms (parts of "rivet"):

clinch (the flattened part of a nail or bolt or rivet)

Derivation:

rivet (fasten with a rivet or rivets)

Sense 2

Meaning:

Ornament consisting of a circular rounded protuberance (as on a vault or shield or belt)

Synonyms:

rivet; stud

Classified under:

Nouns denoting man-made objects

Hypernyms ("rivet" is a kind of...):

decoration; ornament; ornamentation (something used to beautify)

 II. (verb) 

Sense 1

Meaning:

Direct one's attention on something

Example:

Please focus on your studies and not on your hobbies

Synonyms:

center; centre; concentrate; focus; pore; rivet

Classified under:

Verbs of thinking, judging, analyzing, doubting

Hypernyms (to "rivet" is one way to...):

cerebrate; cogitate; think (use or exercise the mind or one's power of reason in order to make inferences, decisions, or arrive at a solution or judgments)

Verb group:

rivet (hold (someone's attention))

Troponyms (each of the following is one way to "rivet"):

absorb; engross; engulf; immerse; plunge; soak up; steep (devote (oneself) fully to)

recall (cause one's (or someone else's) thoughts or attention to return from a reverie or digression)

think (focus one's attention on a certain state)

zoom in (examine closely; focus one's attention on)

hear; listen; take heed (listen and pay attention)

Sentence frame:

Somebody ----s on something

Sense 2

Meaning:

Hold (someone's attention)

Example:

The discovery of the skull riveted the paleontologists

Classified under:

Verbs of thinking, judging, analyzing, doubting

Hypernyms (to "rivet" is one way to...):

absorb; engage; engross; occupy (consume all of one's attention or time)

Verb group:

center; centre; concentrate; focus; pore; rivet (direct one's attention on something)

Sentence frames:

Something ----s somebody
Something ----s something

Sense 3

Meaning:

Fasten with a rivet or rivets

Classified under:

Verbs of touching, hitting, tying, digging

Hypernyms (to "rivet" is one way to...):

fasten; fix; secure (cause to be firmly attached)

Sentence frames:

Somebody ----s something
Somebody ----s something PP

Derivation:

rivet (heavy pin having a head at one end and the other end being hammered flat after being passed through holes in the pieces that are fastened together)

riveter (a machine for driving rivets)

riveter (a worker who inserts and hammers rivets)

rivetter (a machine for driving rivets)

rivetter (a worker who inserts and hammers rivets)

Credits

 Context examples: 

One former Inuit camp on an islet off Ellesmere Island contained the rivets of a Norse boat – quite possibly a hunting trip that never returned.

(Over-hunting walruses contributed to the collapse of Norse Greenland, University of Cambridge)

I have noted your absent mind, your kindling eye, your trying and riveting of old harness.

(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Insidiously, and by remote ways, as well as by the power of stick and stone and clout of hand, were the shackles of White Fang's bondage being riveted upon him.

(White Fang, by Jack London)

One house, and only one, riveted my attention.

(His Last Bow, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

The rivet came out, you know, this morning.

(Emma, by Jane Austen)

Through the gauze curtain our eyes were all riveted upon the scene within.

(The Return of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Without speaking, without smiling, without seeming to recognise in me a human being, he only twined my waist with his arm and riveted me to his side.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

Mars will remain in this area, riveting you on home and family, until January 3, plenty of time to decide what you’d like to do, and this time, you will have Mercury in strong, direct orbit, so life will move along swiftly.

(AstrologyZone.com, by Susan Miller)

My attention was so riveted by the lady’s curious manner and by the gestures and attitudes with which she accompanied every remark, that I did not see the great admiral enter the room.

(Rodney Stone, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Having uttered which, with great distinctness, she begged the favour of being shown to her room, which became to me from that time forth a place of awe and dread, wherein the two black boxes were never seen open or known to be left unlocked, and where (for I peeped in once or twice when she was out) numerous little steel fetters and rivets, with which Miss Murdstone embellished herself when she was dressed, generally hung upon the looking-glass in formidable array.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)