CLIFF

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

IPA (US):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does cliff mean? 

• CLIFF (noun)
  The noun CLIFF has 1 sense:

1. a steep high face of rock

  Familiarity information: CLIFF used as a noun is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• CLIFF (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

A steep high face of rock

Classified under:

Nouns denoting natural objects (not man-made)

Synonyms:

cliff; drop; drop-off

Context example:

a steep drop

Hypernyms ("cliff" is a kind of...):

formation; geological formation ((geology) the geological features of the earth)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "cliff"):

crag (a steep rugged rock or cliff)

precipice (a very steep cliff)

 Context examples 

The cliff is so high that to climb it all was an obvious impossibility, and it was equally impossible to make my way along the wet path without leaving some tracks.

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

That habit came back to the poor dear, and that awful night on the cliff must have made her ill.

(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)

A jagged scarp, or wall of cliffs, known as Piri Rupes borders the young, nearly crater-free plains of Piri Planitia.

(What’s Eating at Pluto?, NASA)

My only answer was my own voice reverberating in a rolling echo from the cliffs around me.

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

The team-dogs were swept back against the cliff at the first onset.

(The Call of the Wild, by Jack London)

Far down at the base of the cliff I saw, as I looked over, a tangled mass of branches and splintered trunk.

(The Lost World, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Its partial skeleton was recovered from Cretaceous Period rocks exposed in a cliff surface in the western branch of the East African Rift System.

(New dinosaur with heart-shaped tail offers clues to evolution of Africa's ecosystems, National Science Foundation)

Whilst the knights had charged them in front the slingers had crept round upon either flank and had gained a footing upon the cliffs and behind the outlying rocks.

(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

“Now, let us calmly define our position, Watson,” he continued as we skirted the cliffs together.

(His Last Bow, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

The new species, named Rukwatitan bisepultus, was first spotted embedded in a cliff wall in the Rukwa Rift Basin of southwestern Tanzania.

(Paleontologists discover new species of titanosaurian dinosaur in Tanzania, NSF)