corniche means A road built on a ledge (cliff), especially along water (a river, sea, etc). Lexicurio rates it Sui generis — a strength score of 85 out of 100.
Why this word is great
CORNICHE — [Noun] A road engineered along a precipitous ledge, especially a coastline or cliff. From French corniche ("ledge, projecting molding"), a shortening of route de corniche, from Italian cornice ("projecting ledge, molding"). Unlike a "boulevard," which asserts civic order with broad, tree-lined calm, or a "promenade," which implies leisurely, pedestrian communion, a corniche is a bravura act of civil engineering, a tense compromise unspooled where logic says it should not go. It is the serpentine scar of asphalt on a sun-bleached limestone face, the tensile hum of tires inches from a guardrail above an azure void, and the engineered thrill of a hairpin turn that reveals a sudden, vertiginous vista—a monument to the human compulsion to trace a fragile line of dominion along the very edge of the world.
noun
- A road built on a ledge (cliff), especially along water (a river, sea, etc).