couloir

/kulˈwɑɹ/

Etymology

Borrowed from French couloir (literally “corridor”).

Why this word is great

COULOIR — [Noun] A steep gorge or narrow passage along a mountainside, often used as a climbing route. From the French couloir ("corridor, passage"), from Late Latin cōlātōrium ("strainer"), from Latin cōlāre ("to strain, filter"). Unlike "gorge" (which suggests a river-carved valley) or "corridor" (which evokes the tame geometry of human architecture), a couloir is a raw, vertical seam in the earth—a place where the mountain itself seems to exhale. It is the knife-cut of shadow at dawn, the icy funnel where snow collects like a held breath, the precarious ladder of rock and scree that demands every ounce of focus to ascend. A couloir does not accommodate; it filters, testing those who pass through it.

noun

A steep gorge along a mountainside.“Those deep, dark slots in a mountain known as couloirs are often the most obvious routes of ascent.”
A corridor or passage.“It was a hole, in the fence, a large irregular hole, caused by numberless winds, numberless rains, or by a boar, or by a bull, flying, pursuing, a wild boar, a wild bull, blind with fear, blind with rage, or who knows perhaps with carnal desire, crashing at this point, through the fence, weakened by numberless winds, numberless rains. Through this hole I passed, without hurt, or damage to my prett”