clift
See also: Clift
English edit
Etymology edit
Variant form of cliff, influenced by cleft.
Pronunciation edit
Noun edit
clift (plural clifts)
- (obsolete) A cliff. [14th–19th c.]
- 1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book I, Canto XI”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC:
- So downe he fell, as an huge rockie clift, / Whose false foundation waues haue washt away [...].
- 1624, John Smith, Generall Historie, Kupperman, published 1988, page 91:
- so broad is the bay here, we could scarce perceive the great high clifts on the other side: by them we Anchored that night and called them Riccards Cliftes.
Derived terms edit
Middle English edit
Alternative forms edit
Etymology edit
Inherited from Old English ġeclyft, from Proto-Germanic *kluftiz; equivalent to cleven + -th.
Pronunciation edit
Noun edit
clift (plural cliftes)
- A cleft; a fission, fissure, or split in something.
- A slash wound; an injury from an instance of slicing, cleaving, rupturing or cutting.
- The fork in one's legs or behind; a bodily cleft.
- (rare) A cliff or bank.
- (rare) A slicing for surgical reasons.
- (rare) A shard or piece of something.
Descendants edit
References edit
- “clift, n.”, in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007, retrieved 2018-07-31.