the.com/escarpment
a cliff that admits the planet has been keeping receipts on itself.
means A long, steep slope or cliff that separates two areas of differing height, often where erosion or faulting has exposed the edge of a flat upland.
from From French 'escarpe,' a steep slope, which fortification engineers borrowed from Italian 'scarpa,' the sloped face of a defensive wall or ditch. The Italian word may ultimately tie to a Germanic root for something sharp or cut — fitting, since an escarpment looks exactly like the land has been sliced. The '-ment' suffix, doing its usual Latin-via-French work, turns the action into the thing: the result of scarping, a face carved steep.
- meaning
- long steep slope separating two flatter levels of land
- war roots
- named for fortress walls built to repel attackers
- fault lines
- many mark where Earth's crust slipped and dropped
- famous one
- Niagara's escarpment shapes its thundering falls
- slow birth
- erosion and tectonics carve them over millions of years
niagara escarpment — 405-mile rocky ridge extending from new york through ontario, site of niagara falls
mogollon rim arizona — 200-mile escarpment in central arizona dropping 2,000 feet from colorado plateau