different between rift vs crevasse

English

Pronunciation

• enPR: r?ft, IPA^(key): /??ft/
• Rhymes: -?ft

Etymology 1

Middle English rift, of North Germanic origin; akin to Danish rift, Norwegian Bokmål rift (“breach”), Old Norse rífa (“to tear”). More at rive.

Noun

rift (plural rifts)

1. A chasm or fissure.

   My marriage is in trouble: the fight created a rift between us and we can't reconnect.

   The Grand Canyon is a rift in the Earth's surface, but is smaller than some of the undersea ones.

2. A break in the clouds, fog, mist etc., which allows light through.
   • 1931, William Faulkner, Sanctuary, Vintage 1993, page 130:

     I have but one rift in the darkness, that is that I have injured no one save myself by my folly, and that the extent of that folly you will never learn.

3. A shallow place in a stream; a ford.

Derived terms

• rift valley

Translations

Verb

rift (third-person singular simple present rifts, present participle rifting, simple past and past participle rifted)

1. (intransitive) To form a rift; to split open.
2. (transitive) To cleave; to rive; to split.

   to rift an oak

   • to the dread rattling thunder / Have I given fire and rifted Jove's stout oak / With his own bolt

   • 1822, William Wordsworth, "A Jewish Family (in a small valley opposite St. Goar, upon the Rhine)" 9-11, [1]

     The Mother—her thou must have seen, / In spirit, ere she came / To dwell these rifted rocks between.

   • 1894, Ivan Dexter, Talmud: A Strange Narrative of Central Australia, published in serial form in Port Adelaide News and Lefevre's Peninsula Advertiser (SA), Chapter III, [2]

     he stopped rigid as one petrified and gazed through the rifted logs of the raft into the water.

Etymology 2

From Old Norse rypta.

Verb

rift (third-person singular simple present rifts, present participle rifting, simple past and past participle rifted)

1. (obsolete outside Scotland and northern Britain) To belch.

Etymology 3

Verb

rift (obsolete)

1. past participle of rive

   The mightie trunck halfe rent, with ragged rift

   Doth roll adowne the rocks, and fall with fearefull drift.

Anagrams

• FTIR, frit

Norwegian Bokmål

Etymology

From the verb rive

Noun

rift f or m (definite singular rifta or riften, indefinite plural rifter, definite plural riftene)

1. a rip, tear (in fabric)
2. a break (in the clouds)
3. a scratch (on skin, paint)
4. a rift (geology)

Derived terms

• riftdal

References

• “rift” in The Bokmål Dictionary.
• “rift” in Det Norske Akademis ordbok (NAOB).

Norwegian Nynorsk

Etymology

From the verb rive or riva

Noun

rift f (definite singular rifta, indefinite plural rifter, definite plural riftene)

1. a rip, tear (in fabric)
2. a break (in the clouds)
3. a scratch (on skin, paint)
4. a rift (geology)

Derived terms

• riftdal

References

• “rift” in The Nynorsk Dictionary.

Old English

Etymology

From Proto-Germanic *rift?, *riftij?, perhaps from Proto-Indo-European *h?reb?- (“to cover; arch over; vault”). Cognate with Old High German peinrefta (“legwear; leggings”), Old Norse ript, ripti (“a kind of cloth; linen jerkin”).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /rift/

Noun

rift n (nominative plural rift)

1. a veil; curtain; cloak

Related terms

• rifte

Descendants

• Middle English: rift

Romanian

Etymology

From French rift.

Noun

rift n (plural rifturi)

1. rift

Declension

Scots

Etymology

From Old Norse rypta.

Verb

rift (third-person singular present rifts, present participle riftin, past riftit, past participle riftit)

1. to belch, burp

English

Etymology

From French crevasse. Doublet of crevice.

Pronunciation

• Rhymes: -æs
• IPA^(key): /k???væs/

Noun

crevasse (plural crevasses)

1. A crack or fissure in a glacier or snowfield; a chasm.
2. (US) A breach in a canal or river bank.
3. (by extension) Any cleft or fissure.
   • 2010, Scott R. Riley, A Lost Hero Found (page 111)

     I moved my left hand to the small of her back, just above her belt-line and stroked the peach fuzz in her crevasse with my fingers.

4. (figuratively) A discontinuity or “gap” between the accounted variables and an observed outcome.
   • 1954: Gilbert Ryle, Dilemmas: The Tarner Lectures, 1953, dilemma vii: Perception, page 105 (The Syndics of the Cambridge University Press)

     […] he laments that he can find no physiological phenomenon answering to his subject’s winning a race, or losing it. Between his terminal output of energy and his victory or defeat there is a mysterious crevasse. Physiology is baffled.

Translations

Verb

crevasse (third-person singular simple present crevasses, present participle crevassing, simple past and past participle crevassed)

1. (intransitive) To form crevasses.
2. (transitive) To fissure with crevasses.

French

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /k??.vas/
• Rhymes: -as

Etymology 1

Old French crevace, crever +? -asse

Noun

crevasse f (plural crevasses)

1. crevasse

Etymology 2

Inflected forms

Verb

crevasse

1. first-person singular imperfect subjunctive of crever

Further reading

• “crevasse” in Trésor de la langue française informatisé (The Digitized Treasury of the French Language).

Portuguese

Alternative forms

• crevassa (dated)

Noun

crevasse f (plural crevasses)

1. (glaciology) crevasse (a crack or fissure in a glacier or snow field)