anticline
Americannoun
noun
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A fold of rock layers that slope downward on both sides of a common crest. Anticlines form when rocks are compressed by plate-tectonic forces. They can be as small as a hill or as large as a mountain range.
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Compare syncline
Etymology
Origin of anticline
First recorded in 1860–65; back formation from anticlinal
Compare meaning
How does anticline compare to similar and commonly confused words? Explore the most common comparisons:
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
The harsh, high-desert anticline is almost as big as Delaware and home to such wildness and alien-looking geology that the Mars Society has built a Mars Desert Research Station there.
From Washington Post ● Sep. 16, 2022
Not surprisingly, the long anticline of Simon’s post-“Graceland” career is the dullest part of the book.
From Washington Post ● Oct. 27, 2016
If we know that the folded beds have not been overturned, then we can use the more specific terms: anticline and syncline.
From Textbooks ● Jan. 1, 2015
It sliced through the ancient caldera, neatly bisecting the ancient Jerome anticline with its twinned ore bodies.
From Scientific American ● Jun. 4, 2012
The anticline has advanced relatively to the syncline.
From The Birth-Time of the World and Other Scientific Essays by Joly, John
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
