Rip currents are not rip tides. A distinctly separate type of current includes both ebb and flood tidal currents that are caused by egress and ingress of the tide through inlets and the mouths of estuaries, embayments and harbors. These currents may cause drowning deaths, but these tidal currents or jets are a separate and distinct phenomenon from rip currents. Recommended terms for this phenomenon include ebb jet or tidal jet.

a narrow path of water that pulls a swimmer out to sea

See Rip Current.

also called a rip current. It is an occasional anomaly that is associated with undertows that are created at the shoreline as water that recedes back to the sea just after it has broken the shoreline. Rip tides are formed when two currents in a semicircular fashion collide into each other at the shoreline from opposite directions.