escarpment

/ɪˈskɑːp.mənt/

Etymology

Borrowed from French escarpement. By surface analysis, escarp + -ment.

escarpment means A steep descent or declivity; steep face or edge of a ridge; ground about a fortified place, cut away nearly vertically to prevent hostile approach. Lexicurio rates it Rare gem — a strength score of 76 out of 100.

Why this word is great

ESCARPMENT — [Noun] A long, steep slope or cliff, formed by geological faulting or erosion, or the formidable artificial slope fronting a fortress wall. From French escarpement, from escarper (‘to make into a steep slope’), from escarpe (‘slope’), from Italian scarpa (‘slope’), of Germanic origin. Unlike “cliff” (a general, often coastal, rock face) or “scarp” (a term of precise, martial geometry), an escarpment is a continental gesture—a vast, slow-breathing demarcation between two worlds of land. It is the relentless, rain-sculpted wall of the Blue Ridge, the sun-baked fault scarp rising from the desert floor, and the engineered, grass-covered glacis before a bastion. It is the enduring scar where geography remembers a fracture, a line drawn not in ink, but in rock and perspective.

noun

A steep descent or declivity; steep face or edge of a ridge; ground about a fortified place, cut away nearly vertically to prevent hostile approach.“After the canyons, the most remarkable features of the country are the long lines of cliffs. These are bold escarpments scores or hundreds of miles in length,—great geographic steps, often hundreds or thousands of feet in altitude, presenting steep faces of rock, often vertical.”