ALPINE

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does Alpine mean? 

• ALPINE (adjective)
  The adjective ALPINE has 3 senses:

1. relating to or characteristic of alps

2. relating to the Alps and their inhabitants

3. living or growing above the timber line

  Familiarity information: ALPINE used as an adjective is uncommon.

 Dictionary entry details 

• ALPINE (adjective)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Relating to or characteristic of alps

Classified under:

Relational adjectives (pertainyms)

Context example:

alpine sports

Pertainym:

alp (any high mountain)

Sense 2

Meaning:

Relating to the Alps and their inhabitants

Classified under:

Relational adjectives (pertainyms)

Context example:

Alpine countries, Switzerland, Italy, France, and Germany

Pertainym:

Alps (a large mountain system in south-central Europe; scenic beauty and winter sports make them a popular tourist attraction)

Sense 3

Meaning:

Living or growing above the timber line

Context example:

alpine flowers

Similar:

highland; upland (used of high or hilly country)

Domain category:

biological science; biology (the science that studies living organisms)

 Context examples 

Scientists at Sainsbury Laboratory Cambridge University have found that the mineral vaterite, a form (polymorph) of calcium carbonate, is a dominant component of the protective silvery-white crust that forms on the leaves of a number of alpine plants, which are part of the Garden’s national collection of European Saxifraga species.

(Rare mineral discovered in plants for first time, University of Cambridge)

It was during an access of this kind that I suddenly left my home, and bending my steps towards the near Alpine valleys, sought in the magnificence, the eternity of such scenes, to forget myself and my ephemeral, because human, sorrows.

(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)

They were those which treat of the haunts of sea-fowl; of the solitary rocks and promontories by them only inhabited; of the coast of Norway, studded with isles from its southern extremity, the Lindeness, or Naze, to the North Cape—Nor could I pass unnoticed the suggestion of the bleak shores of Lapland, Siberia, Spitzbergen, Nova Zembla, Iceland, Greenland, with the vast sweep of the Arctic Zone, and those forlorn regions of dreary space,—that reservoir of frost and snow, where firm fields of ice, the accumulation of centuries of winters, glazed in Alpine heights above heights, surround the pole, and concentre the multiplied rigours of extreme cold.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

In the homely Alpine villages or in the lonely mountain passes, I could tell by his quick glancing eyes and his sharp scrutiny of every face that passed us, that he was well convinced that, walk where we would, we could not walk ourselves clear of the danger which was dogging our footsteps.

(The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

But so many were the men who had rushed into the Klondike, and so many were the sweethearts, wives, and kin that had not rushed in, that the congested mail was taking on Alpine proportions; also, there were official orders.

(The Call of the Wild, by Jack London)

'Challenger, George Edward. Born: Largs, N. B., 1863. Educ.: Largs Academy; Edinburgh University. British Museum Assistant, 1892. Assistant-Keeper of Comparative Anthropology Department, 1893. Resigned after acrimonious correspondence same year. Winner of Crayston Medal for Zoological Research. Foreign Member of'—well, quite a lot of things, about two inches of small type—'Societe Belge, American Academy of Sciences, La Plata, etc., etc. Ex-President Palaeontological Society. Section H, British Association'—so on, so on!—'Publications: Some Observations Upon a Series of Kalmuck Skulls; Outlines of Vertebrate Evolution; and numerous papers, including The underlying fallacy of Weissmannism, which caused heated discussion at the Zoological Congress of Vienna. Recreations: Walking, Alpine climbing. Address: Enmore Park, Kensington, W.' There, take it with you.

(The Lost World, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

She busied herself with following the aerial creations of the poets; and in the majestic and wondrous scenes which surrounded our Swiss home —the sublime shapes of the mountains, the changes of the seasons, tempest and calm, the silence of winter, and the life and turbulence of our Alpine summers—she found ample scope for admiration and delight.

(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)