clift
See also: Clift
English
Etymology
Variant form of cliff, influenced by cleft.
Pronunciation
- (UK) IPA(key): /klɪft/
Noun
clift (plural clifts)
- (obsolete) A cliff. [14th-19th c.]
- 1590, Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene, I.xi:
- So downe he fell, as an huge rockie clift, / Whose false foundation waues haue washt away [...].
- 1624, John Smith, Generall Historie, in Kupperman 1988, p. 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.
- 1590, Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene, I.xi:
Derived terms
- clifty
Middle English
Alternative forms
- clyft, clifte, clyfte
Etymology
Inherited from Old English ġeclyft, from Proto-Germanic *kluftiz; equivalent to cleven + -th.
Pronunciation
- IPA(key): /klift/
Noun
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
- English: cleft
- Scots: clift
References
- “clift (n.)” in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007, retrieved 2018-07-31.