talus
1 Americannoun
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tali
plural
noun
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taluses
plural
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a slope.
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Geology. a sloping mass of rocky fragments at the base of a cliff.
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Fortification. the slope of the face of a work.
noun
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geology another name for scree
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fortifications the sloping side of a wall
noun
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taluses
plural
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Rock fragments that have accumulated at the base of a cliff or slope.
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◆ The concave slope formed by such an accumulation of rock fragments is called a talus slope.
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tali
plural
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of talus1
First recorded in 1685–95, talus is from the Latin word tālus ankle, anklebone, die. See tassel
Origin of talus2
1635–45; < French: pseudo-learned alteration of Old French talu slope < Latin talūtium gold-bearing slope or talus ( Vulgar Latin: slope), perhaps of Iberian origin
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.
See Examples For:
Surgeons removed her talus bone, which forms part of the ankle joint, after she developed an infection that prevented doctors from using metal implants.
From BBC ● May 20, 2026
Woods disclosed the surgery on Twitter and said it was a subtalar fusion procedure to address post-traumatic arthritis from when he broke his talus bone in February 2021.
From Washington Times ● Apr. 19, 2023
The first four days featured very limited access points and the entire route required the “North Cascades’ finest bushwhacking,” glacier travel, snowfields, scree, boulder and talus fields, and scrambling.
From Seattle Times ● Oct. 1, 2022
A little past the halfway mark, the trail leaves the forest and climbs a talus slope, offering views of Whitehorse Mountain and Three Fingers.
From Seattle Times ● Aug. 31, 2022
It led through a vast talus field and then, a mile or so farther on, into woods.
From "A Walk in the Woods" by Bill Bryson
The giraffe was a tali drill that had been brought to the village by the two men who had visited earlier.
From "A Long Walk to Water" by Linda Sue Park
A tali was brought out piled with boiled ducks’ eggs, crisply fried pooris, dal, rice, curries, chapatis, mango chutney, and many kinds of sweets.
From "Homeless Bird" by Gloria Whelan
To touch, to begin to take; to make use of.Talel, v. aor. tali, fut. talae or tae.
From The Maya Chronicles Brinton's Library Of Aboriginal American Literature, Number 1 by Daniel Garrison Brinton
"I must better that," thundered the freedman, slapping the tali out on to the table.
From A Friend of Caesar A Tale of the Fall of the Roman Republic. Time, 50-47 B.C. by William Stearns Davis
The people are tali, neat, and well-clothed in long robes of white callico or silk, and are very grave and judicious in their behaviour.
As recently as 10,000 years ago, bowl-like cirques in the park's mountains were sculpted by glaciers, which left in their wake gray carpets of rock known as taluses.
From Time Magazine Archive
No other tree in the Sierra seems so much at home on earthquake taluses and many of these huge boulder-slopes are almost exclusively occupied by it.
From The Yosemite by John Muir
Those vast sloping taluses are as clean as a meadow; rarely at the foot of the huge vertical walls do you see a fragment of fallen rock.
From Time and Change by John Burroughs
No other tree seems so capable of adapting itself to earthquake taluses, and many of these rough boulder-slopes are occupied by it almost exclusively, especially in yosemite gorges moistened by the spray of waterfalls.
From The Mountains of California by John Muir
I found it somewhat difficult to keep up with him in dense, tangled brush, though in jumping on boulder taluses and slippery cobble-beds I had no difficulty in leaving him behind.
From The Yosemite by John Muir
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