arrival

From Middle English arivaile, arivaille, arrival, arryvaile, arryvaylle, aryvayle, aryvaylle, from Middle French arrivaille, from arriver; equivalent to arrive +‎ -al.

• enPR: ə-rīv'əl, IPA^(key): /əˈɹaɪ.vəl/

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• Rhymes: -aɪvəl

arrival (countable and uncountable, plural arrivals)

1. The act of arriving (reaching a certain place).

   The early arrival of the bride created a stir.

   • c. 1590–1592 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Taming of the Shrew”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act IV, scene v]:

     And wander we to see thy honest son,
     Who will of thy arrival be full joyous.

   • 1776 March 9, Adam Smith, chapter 10, in An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations. […], volume (please specify |volume=I or II), London: […] W[illiam] Strahan; and T[homas] Cadell, […], →OCLC, book, pages 127-128:

     the unavoidable irregularity in the arrivals of coal ships

   • 1897 December (indicated as 1898), Winston Churchill, chapter V, in The Celebrity: An Episode, New York, N.Y.: The Macmillan Company; London: Macmillan & Co., Ltd., →OCLC:

     We made an odd party before the arrival of the Ten, particularly when the Celebrity dropped in for lunch or dinner.

   • 1921, Ben Travers, chapter 5, in A Cuckoo in the Nest, Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, Page & Company, published 1925, →OCLC:

     The most rapid and most seductive transition in all human nature is that which attends the palliation of a ravenous appetite. […] Can those harmless but refined fellow-diners be the selfish cads whose gluttony and personal appearance so raised your contemptuous wrath on your arrival?

2. The fact of reaching a particular point in time.

   He celebrated the arrival of payday with a shopping spree.

   • c. 1597 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The First Part of Henry the Fourth, […]”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act V, scene ii]:

     O gentlemen, the time of life is short!
     To spend that shortness basely were too long,
     If life did ride upon a dial’s point,
     Still ending at the arrival of an hour.

   • 1860 December – 1861 August, Charles Dickens, chapter XVII, in Great Expectations […], volume I, London: Chapman and Hall, […], published October 1861, →OCLC, page 266:

     I now fell into a regular routine of apprenticeship-life, which was varied […] by no more remarkable circumstance than the arrival of my birthday and my paying another visit to Miss Havisham.

   • 2000, Zadie Smith, White Teeth, London: Hamish Hamilton, →ISBN, page 339:

     It was a place […] where to count on the arrival of tomorrow was an indulgence, and every service in the house, from the milkman to the electricity, was paid for on a strictly daily basis so as not to spend money on utilities or goods that would be wasted should God turn up in all his holy vengeance the very next day.

3. The fact of beginning to occur; the initial phase of something.

   Synonym: onset

   The arrival of puberty can be especially challenging for transgender youth.

   • 1951, William Styron, chapter 6, in Lie Down in Darkness‎^[1], New York: Modern Library, page 306:

     a raw scraping in the back of his throat, which announced the arrival of a bad cold

   • 1995, Rohinton Mistry, A Fine Balance‎^[2], Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, Part 11, p. 513:

     Streetlamps started to flicker tentatively—yellow buds, intimating the arrival of the full glow.

4. The attainment of an objective, especially as a result of effort.

   Synonyms: advent, introduction

   The arrival of the railway made the local tourist industry viable.

   • 1973, Jan Morris, Heaven’s Command‎^[3], New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, published 1980, Part 3, Chapter 21, p. 411:

     All the admirals had grown up in sail, and many of them viewed the arrival of steam with undisguised dislike […]

   • 2013 July 20, “Out of the gloom”, in The Economist, volume 408, number 8845:

     [T]he rapid arrival of electric light to Indian villages is long overdue.

5. A person who has arrived; a thing that has arrived.

   Synonyms: arrivant, arriver

   There has been a significant growth in illegal arrivals.

   • 1823, Lord Byron, Don Juan, London: John Hunt, Canto 11, stanza 68, p. 137,^[4]

     Saloon, room, hall o’erflow beyond their brink,

     And long the latest of arrivals halts,

     ’Midst royal dukes and dames condemned to climb,

     And gain an inch of staircase at a time.

   • 1889, Mark Twain, chapter 24, in A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court‎^[5], New York: Charles L. Webster, page 306:

     The abbot and his monks were assembled in the great hall, observing with childish wonder and faith the performances of a new magician, a fresh arrival.

   • 1970, J. G. Farrell, Troubles‎^[6], New York: Knopf, published 1971, page 72:

     a raw apple […] that looked so fresh and shining that it might even have been an early arrival of the new season’s crop

   • 2004, Alan Hollinghurst, chapter 14, in The Line of Beauty […], 1st US edition, New York, N.Y.: Bloomsbury Publishing, →ISBN, page 369:

     […] the whole bar was a fierce collective roar, and he edged and smiled politely through it like a sober late arrival at a wild party.

• departure
• non-arrival, nonarrival

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