River

The fast moving, dangerous part is called "rapids".

Your verbiage "widens and becomes gentle" or something similar is fine. It isn't something that appears often, so there is no regular way to describe it, and every river is a little different. And the gentling of rapids often happens where the river gets to level land.

King Neptune said:

Your verbiage "widens and becomes gentle" or something similar is fine. It isn't something that appears often, so there is no regular way to describe it, and every river is a little different. And the gentling of rapids often happens where the river gets to level land.

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+1

Some Google searching has failed to provide a term for this. You might see if you can find some books centered on river travel (like Gary Paulsen's The River) and see how they describe changes in the river's flow - IIRC, it was along the lines of your example, just mentioning that the rapids ended and/or the river gentled and widened. (If the fast, rough bits are "rapids", logic suggests these slow, calm bits ought to be "slows", but apparently the creators of riparian terminology disagree.)

efreysson said:

I know, but how does one refer to river spreading out, gentling, becoming less . . . well, rapid. Would my phrasing work?

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I'm a geologist, and teach introductory physical geology, so now you get my 50-cent lecture on river patterns:

Stream energy is dependent largely on stream gradient: How steep the angle of stream flow is, conventionally expressed as the drop in elevation per unit of distance. When streams flow steeply, they are very energetic, and produce rapids and falls over the landscape.

When they reach a flatter landscape, they slow down, and begin to expend what energy they have at the lateral margins (edges) of the stream. That produces meanders, wandering loops which widen over time to a certain limit* beyond which they cannot. But they tend to widen and become gentle in flow velocity in such conditions.

So. I think your description works fine, and, as a reader, it wouldn't bother me at all.

caw


*Research has been done on this exact problem, and has found that the limit of stream meandering, that is of stream distance vs. straight line distance, approaches but does not exceed 3.14. And it's fractal. It doesn't matter how big or small the stream system is, they all work the same. NOW you owe me 50 cents.

King Neptune is right. Fast moving rivers over usually rocky beds are 'rapids,' or 'white water.' You could call a fast moving stretch of river without rocky obstructions breaking up the water a 'torrent.' Where the flow reduces can be called 'slack' water, or simply a 'pool.' If the calmer water moves contrary to the main current you have an 'eddy.'

This is a case where you don't need to explain it if you trust your readers to know that almost no rivers have rapids along their entire length, that there are always calmer sections. Then, "She realized she was through the rapids" communicates that she's in a calmer part without having to name it.

Agree with what's already been said. If you are looking for a good descriptive word for calm water, though it's not a technical term, 'placid' comes to mind.