different between topography vs orography

English

Etymology

First attested in 1432. From Middle English topographye, from Latin topographia, from Ancient Greek ?????????? (topographía), from ????? (tópos, “place”) + ????? (gráph?, “I write”).

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /t??p????fi/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /t??p????fi/
• Hyphenation: top?og?raphy
• Rhymes: -????fi

Noun

topography (countable and uncountable, plural topographies)

1. A precise description of a place.
2. A detailed graphic representation of the surface features of a place or object.
3. The features themselves; terrain.
4. The surveying of the features.

Related terms

Translations

See also

• topology
• toponym
• toponymic

Anagrams

• optography

English

Alternative forms

• oreography

Etymology

oro- (“mountain”) +? -graphy

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): /???????fi/
• Rhymes: -????fi

Noun

orography (usually uncountable, plural orographies)

1. (geomorphology) the scientific study, or a physical description of mountains
2. the orographic features of a region
   • 1911, Africa, article in Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition,

     Morocco was in 1883-1884 the scene of important explorations by de Foucauld, a Frenchman who, disguised as a Jew, crossed and re-crossed the Atlas and supplied the first trustworthy information as to the orography of many parts of the chain.

   • 1995, B. W. Atkinson, Introduction to the fluid mechanics of meso-scale flow fields, in A. Gyr, Franz-S. Rys (editors), Diffusion and Transport of Pollutants in Atmospheric Mesoscale Flow Fields, page 20,

     Most flows actually occur, of course, over non-uniform orography and consequently in numerical models of such flows it is necessary to transform the coordinates so that the equations accurately represent flows in such terrain (Gal-Chen and Somerville 1975).

   • 2006, Austin Woods, Medium-Range Weather Prediction: The European Approach, page 105,

     The independent scientists of the Scientific Advisory Committee (SAC) expressed concerns about how the spectral model would deal with steep mountains. […] It was this work that lead to development of the envelope orography outlined below.

Translations

References

• OED 2004 (online)