different between clift vs precipice

English

Etymology

Variant form of cliff, influenced by cleft.

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): /kl?ft/

Noun

clift (plural clifts)

1. (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.

Derived terms

• clifty

Middle English

Alternative forms

• clyft, clifte, clyfte

Etymology

Inherited from Old English ?eclyft, from Proto-Germanic *kluftiz; equivalent to cleven +? -th.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /klift/

Noun

clift (plural cliftes)

1. A cleft; a fission, fissure, or split in something.
2. A slash wound; an injury from an instance of slicing, cleaving, rupturing or cutting.
3. The fork in one's legs or behind; a bodily cleft.
4. (rare) A cliff or bank.
5. (rare) A slicing for surgical reasons.
6. (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.

English

Alternative forms

• præcipice (archaic)

Etymology

First attested in 1598, from Middle French precipice, from Latin praecipitium (“a steep place”), from praeceps (“steep”), from prae + caput (“head”). First meaning of the noun is recorded from 1632.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?p??s?p?s/
• (weak vowel merger) IPA^(key): /?p??s.?.p?s/
• Hyphenation: preci?pice

Noun

precipice (plural precipices)

1. A very steep cliff.
   • 1719- Daniel Defoe, Robinson Crusoe

     I resolved to remove my tent from the place where it stood, which was just under the hanging precipice of the hill; and which, if it should be shaken again, would certainly fall upon my tent...

2. The brink of a dangerous situation.

   to stand on a precipice

3. (obsolete) A headlong fall or descent.

Synonyms

• cliff
• cliffdrop

Related terms

• precipitous
• precipitously
• precipitousness

Translations

Middle French

Noun

precipice m (plural precipices)

1. precipice (steep cliff)