- generally used as a term for a branch or fork of a river, this word can also be applied to an arm of the sea. In Robert Chambers' Popular Rhymes of Scotland (1826), the specific topography of a place called Deadman's Grain is described as:
the junction of two small mountain rills which happen to meet in a forked manner.
This word is derived from Old Norse grein meaning 'branch (of a tree, of the sea), division'.