different between ridge vs precipice

English

Alternative forms

• rig (dialectal)

Etymology

From Middle English rigge, rygge, (also rig, ryg, rug), from Old English hry?? (“back, spine, ridge, elevated surface”), from Proto-Germanic *hrugjaz (“back”), from Proto-Indo-European *(s)kreuk-, *(s)ker- (“to turn, bend”). Cognate with Scots rig (“back, spine, ridge”), North Frisian reg (“back”), West Frisian rêch (“back”), Dutch rug (“back, ridge”), German Rücken (“back, ridge”), Swedish rygg (“back, spine, ridge”), Icelandic hryggur (“spine”). Cognate to Albanian kërrus (“to bend one's back”) and kurriz (“back”).

Pronunciation

• (UK, US) enPR: r?j, IPA^(key): /??d?/
• Rhymes: -?d?

Noun

ridge (plural ridges)

1. (anatomy) The back of any animal; especially the upper or projecting part of the back of a quadruped.
   • 1663–1678, Samuel Butler, Hudibras, part III, canto I, pages 91–92:

     He though it was no time to ?tay, / And let the Night too ?teal away, / But in a trice advanced the Knight, / Upon the Bare Ridge, Bolt upright, / And groping out for Ralpho’s Jade, / He found the Saddle too was ?traid […]

2. Any extended protuberance; a projecting line or strip.

   Antonym: groove

3. The line along which two sloping surfaces meet which diverge towards the ground.
4. The highest point on a roof, represented by a horizontal line where two roof areas intersect, running the length of the area.
5. (fortifications) The highest portion of the glacis proceeding from the salient angle of the covered way.
   • 1853-1855, Joachim Hayward Stocqueler , The Life of Field-Marshal the Duke of Wellington

     the British Guards lie down behind a ridge to avoid the shot and shell from the opposite heights

6. A chain of mountains.
   • c. 1595, William Shakespeare, Richard II, [Act I, scene i], lines 62–66:

     […] Which to maintaine, I would allow him oddes, / And meete him, were I tide to runne afoote, / Euen to the frozen ridges of the Alpes, / Or any other ground inhabitable, / Where euer Engli?hman dur?t ?et his foote.

7. A chain of hills.
8. (oceanography) A long narrow elevation on an ocean bottom.
9. (meteorology) An elongated region of high atmospheric pressure.
   • Antonym: trough

Derived terms

Translations

Verb

ridge (third-person singular simple present ridges, present participle ridging, simple past and past participle ridged)

1. (transitive) To form into a ridge
2. (intransitive) To extend in ridges

Related terms

• Rhodesian Ridgeback

See also

• crest

Anagrams

• derig, dirge, gride, redig

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)