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
An antiform has the same shape as an anticline, but the relative ages of the beds in the fold cannot be determined.
From Textbooks ● Jan. 1, 2017
Not surprisingly, the long anticline of Simon’s post-“Graceland” career is the dullest part of the book.
From Washington Post ● Oct. 27, 2016
It sliced through the ancient caldera, neatly bisecting the ancient Jerome anticline with its twinned ore bodies.
From Scientific American ● Jun. 4, 2012
The strata now dip under the Solent, and rise into another anticline in the Portsdown Hills.
From The Geological Story of the Isle of Wight by J. Cecil Hughes
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.
