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Tributary   /trˈɪbjətˌɛri/   Listen
noun
Tributary  n.  (pl. tributaries)  
1.
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.
2.
A stream or river flowing into a larger river or into a lake; an affluent.



adjective
Tributary  adj.  
1.
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."
2.
Hence, subject; subordinate; inferior. "He to grace his tributary gods."
3.
Paid in tribute. "Tributary tears."
4.
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.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Tributary" Quotes from Famous Books



... were subdued between the years 70 and 80 A.D. by Patilius Cerealis and Agricola. The Romans called the city by the name of Eburacum. The derivation is not known. It has been suggested that it was taken from the river Ure, a tributary of the Ouse, but variations of the word are common in the Roman Empire, as, for example, Eburobriga, Eburodunum, and the Eburovices. These are probably all derived from some common Celtic word. In process of time, perhaps in the reign of the Emperor Severus—that is ...
— The Cathedral Church of York - Bell's Cathedrals: A Description of Its Fabric and A Brief - History of the Archi-Episcopal See • A. Clutton-Brock

... to the agent was the blacksmith, a most important, and, indeed, indispensable personage in a frontier community. The Kansas resemble the Osages in features, dress, and language; they raise corn and hunt the buffalo, ranging the Kansas River, and its tributary streams; at the time of the captain's visit, they were at war with the Pawnees of the ...
— The Adventures of Captain Bonneville - Digested From His Journal • Washington Irving

... from the snow and ice of the surface. They seldom sink out of sight, save here and there in the moraines or glaciers, or, early in the season, beneath the banks and bridges of snow, soon to issue again. But in the north half, laden with rent and porous lava, small tributary streams are rare, and the rivers, flowing for a time beneath the sky of rock, at length burst forth into the light in generous volume from seams and caverns, filtered, cool, and sparkling, as if their bondage in darkness, safe from the vicissitudes of the weather in their ...
— Steep Trails • John Muir

... that the former inhabitants of Plymouth, or Patuxet, a people tributary to Massasoit, but living under their own sachem, had been totally exterminated by a plague, perhaps small-pox, which had swept over the country two or three years before the landing of the Pilgrims, ...
— Standish of Standish - A story of the Pilgrims • Jane G. Austin

... expedition by invading AEthiopia, situated to the south of Egypt. He made it tributary, and obliged the nations of it to furnish him annually with a certain quantity of ebony, ivory, ...
— The Ancient History of the Egyptians, Carthaginians, Assyrians, • Charles Rollin


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