cloudfall

Etymology

From cloud + fall, modelled after waterfall.

Why this word is great

CLOUDFALL — [Noun] The flow of a cloud over a mountain ridge or cliff. From Old English clūd ("mass of rock, cloud") and feallan ("to fall"), modelled after waterfall. Unlike "waterfall" (which crashes and foams) or "avalanche" (which shatters and roars), cloudfall is the softest kind of descent—a surrender to gravity without sound or violence. It is the way fog pours like milk down a canyon at dawn, the way a single wisp unravels over a ridge like thread from a spindle, the way the whole sky seems to exhale when it slips over the edge of the world. A reminder that not all falls are fractures.

noun

  1. The flow of a cloud over a mountain ridge or cliff.“Do not fly on a level with the foehnwall, or cap cloud, which lingers somewhere near the altitude of the mountain crest, and then pours in a cloudfall over the edge.”