tributary
"- A tributary is like a mini river. It is like a stream that stems from a river. You can have them in glaciers as well."
If you think of a river as being like the alphabet, a tributary is like the previous letter in a series. If the river is like a B, then its tributary would be A. One letter flows into the next the way water from a tributary flows.
The water in the soil is pulled by the roots and flows into the main portion of the tree. Many roots flow into a main trunk where it flow into the branches and into the leaves and it evaporates.
METAMIA is a free database of analogy and metaphor. Anyone can contribute or search. The subject matter can be anything. Science is popular, but poetry is encouraged. The goal is to integrate our fluid muses with the stark literalism of a relational database. Metamia is like a girdle for your muses, a cognitive girdle.