MOUNTAIN PASS

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does mountain pass mean? 

• MOUNTAIN PASS (noun)
  The noun MOUNTAIN PASS has 1 sense:

1. the location in a range of mountains of a geological formation that is lower than the surrounding peaks

  Familiarity information: MOUNTAIN PASS used as a noun is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• MOUNTAIN PASS (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

The location in a range of mountains of a geological formation that is lower than the surrounding peaks

Classified under:

Nouns denoting natural objects (not man-made)

Synonyms:

mountain pass; notch; pass

Context example:

we got through the pass before it started to snow

Hypernyms ("mountain pass" is a kind of...):

location (a point or extent in space)

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

col; gap (a pass between mountain peaks)

defile; gorge (a narrow pass (especially one between mountains))

saddle; saddleback (a pass or ridge that slopes gently between two peaks (is shaped like a saddle))

Instance hyponyms:

Brenner Pass (an Alpine mountain pass connecting Innsbruck in Austria with Bolzano in Italy that has long been a route for trade and for invasions)

Cumberland Gap (a pass through the Cumberland Mountains between Virginia and Kentucky that early settlers used in order to move west)

Donner Pass (a mountain pass in northeastern California near Lake Tahoe; site where in 1844 some members of an emigrant party survived by eating those who had died)

Khyber Pass (a mountain pass of great strategic and commercial value in the Hindu Kush on the border between northern Pakistan and western Afghanistan; a route by which invaders entered India)

Holonyms ("mountain pass" is a part of...):

chain; chain of mountains; mountain chain; mountain range; range; range of mountains (a series of hills or mountains)

 Context examples 

But the dwarf was enraged at his behaviour, and laid a fairy spell of ill-luck upon him; so that as he rode on the mountain pass became narrower and narrower, and at last the way was so straitened that he could not go to step forward: and when he thought to have turned his horse round and go back the way he came, he heard a loud laugh ringing round him, and found that the path was closed behind him, so that he was shut in all round.

(Fairy Tales, by The Brothers Grimm)