cliff

¹

[ klif ]

noun

1. a high steep face of a rock.

   Synonyms: crag, ledge, promontory, bluff

2. a critical point or situation beyond which something bad or undesirable may occur:

   The committee is right up to the cliff with no deal in sight.

Cliff

²

[ klif ]

noun

1. a male given name, form of Clifford or Clifton.

cliff

/ klɪf /

noun

1. a steep high rock face, esp one that runs along the seashore and has the strata exposed

Derived Forms

• ˈcliffy, adjective

Other Words From

• clifflike adjective

Word History and Origins

Origin of cliff¹

before 900; Middle English clif, Old English, cognate with Dutch, Low German, Old Norse klif

Word History and Origins

Origin of cliff¹

Old English clif; related to Old Norse kleif, Middle Low German klēf, Dutch klif; see cleave ²

Example Sentences

“People at my agency are hopeful, but are also on the edge of a cliff wondering whether or not leadership is going to take that leap into action,” said a senior planner at one of the larger media agency networks.

From Digiday

In Vega Baja, January’s hurricane cleared the vegetation covering once unnavigable mountain cliffs, allowing the outfitter 21 Climb and Tour to open the Roca Norte Outdoor Climbing Gym.

From Outside Online

Amid the worst collapse in fossil fuel demand in a century, production has fallen off a cliff.

From Quartz

These cycles have operated throughout time, yielding the alternating layers of sediment you see in cliffs and road cuts.

From Quanta Magazine

Despite winning four Gold Glove awards, his defensive metrics were surprisingly poor — thus hurting his JAWS ranking — and his performance fell off a cliff quickly as he got older.

From FiveThirtyEight

This is where I think the argument against me falls off the cliff.

From The Daily Beast

Would I like to tell half the people I work with to go jump off a cliff?

From The Daily Beast

We first met Hajji Zalwar Khan over tea and lunch in the Pech Valley in a house clinging to a cliff high above the valley floor.

From The Daily Beast

The probe appears to be sitting at the bottom of a "cliff" on the comet, but beyond that it's hard to tell.

From The Daily Beast

The young goslings' first major life event is to cliff dive down to their parents, as was captured here by BBC cameras.

From The Daily Beast

Only the petrol tins they took for water right and left of their pathway up the cliff; huge diamonds in the evening sun.

From Project Gutenberg

At dawn half a battalion of Turks tried to make the attack along the top of the cliff and were entirely wiped out.

From Project Gutenberg

One morning Straightshaft climbed the cliff and looked far up and down the valley.

From Project Gutenberg

Then everybody climbed up a hill or a high cliff and watched the coming of the bison.

From Project Gutenberg

There was Cliff Manning, you turned the cold shoulder to him because he couldnt talk grammar.

From Project Gutenberg

Related Words

• bluff
• crag
• precipice
• wall