cordillera
Americannoun
noun
Other Word Forms
- cordilleran adjective
Etymology
Origin of cordillera
First recorded in 1695–1705; from Spanish, derivative of cordilla, diminutive of cuerda “rope, string” (from Latin chorda ). Cordillera originally applied to the Andes Mountains in South America and later to the same mountain chain in Central America and Mexico; see origin at cord
Explanation
A cordillera is an extensive system of mountain ranges. Large and small mountain ranges, plateaus, and valleys running parallel to each other are all part of a cordillera. The word cordillera was first used around 1700 by Spanish colonizers and geographers to describe the Andes Mountains, a system of mountain ranges stretching thousands of miles through South America. Today, the word is used more generally to refer to any extensive mountain system. In North America, the mountain system that includes the Rocky Mountains, the Sierra Nevada, and the Cascades is often called a cordillera; it extends from Alaska and western Canada, through the western United States, and into Mexico. The word cordillera comes from a Spanish word meaning "rope."
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.
Words, so many words were extinguished one by one in the silence of the cordillera, which remains even now silent and unchanging in its illusion of eternity.
From Salon • Jun. 15, 2019
The morning after the knock on her door, Crump trekked up the cordillera, through a soup of fog, mud, and drizzle.
From The New Yorker • Oct. 8, 2018
One of the largest towns in the cordillera, Potolo is well-known for the weavings that women produce there.
From New York Times • Mar. 23, 2016
Chile is one of the world's most earthquake-prone countries because just off the coast the Nazca tectonic plate plunges beneath the South American plate, pushing the towering Andes cordillera to ever-higher altitudes.
From US News • Sep. 17, 2015
His chief ambition at this point was to cross the cordillera in an unusual form of transportation, just as his Uncle Marcos had tried to do many years before.
From "The House of the Spirits: A Novel" by Isabel Allende
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.
