| 释义 |
▪ I. cliff|klɪf|
Forms: 1–7 clif, 3 clef, 4–5 clife, clyff(e, clyf(e, (4 kliffe, klyffe, klyfe, 5 cleyff), 4–7 cliffe, 7– cliff. β. 2–6 (properly dative) cliue, pl. (1 cleofu, clifu), 2–6 cliues, (clyues), 3–4 cliuen, clyuen. Also 5–9 clift.
[OE. clif neut., pl. clifu, orig. cleofu (with u fracture of i) = OS. kliƀ (MLG., LG. clif, clef, MDu. clif, clef, pl. clēve, Du. clif), OHG. kleb, ON. klif:—OTeut. *kliƀo-(m). The early ME. forms were sing. nom. clif, gen. clĭves, dat. clĭve, pl. clĭves; levelling gave also nom. sing. clĭve (see β below), and pl. cliffes, whence mod. cliffs. On the type of the original pl. cleofu, there arose also a sing. cleof, whence clef, cleef, clefe, mod. cleve, cleeve, q.v. In 15th c., cliff was confused with clift, original form of cleft, and very commonly so spelt, esp. from the 16th c.: this is still dialectal and vulgar: see clift.]
1. a. A perpendicular or steep face of rock of considerable height. Usually implying that the strata are broken and exposed in section; an escarpment.
854Charter æthelwolf in Cod. Dipl. V. 105 Of Wulfheres cumbe on Wulfheres clif. c1205Lay. 1926 Nu & æuer mare haueð þat clif [1275 clef] þare nome on ælche leode. a1300E.E. Psalter cxiii[i]. 8 Kliffes [L. rupem] in welles of watres to gane. c1325E.E. Allit. P. A. 74 Dubbed wern alle þo downez sydez With crystal klyffez. c1340Cursor M. 17590 (Laud MS.) Hym to seche in clyffe & clow. a1400Morte Arth. 2013 He hade..for-sett..Bothe the clewez and the clyfez with clene mene of armez [ibid. 2019 cleyffez]. 1515Barclay Egloges iv. (1570) C vj/3 A mountayne of highnes maruelous, With pendant cliffes of stones harde as flent. 1667Milton P.L. vii. 424 There the Eagle and the Stork On Cliffs and Cedar tops thir Eyries build. 1789Mrs. Piozzi Journ. France I. 38 Goats..clamber among the cliffs of Plinlimmon. 1837Penny Cycl. VII. 12 Cheddar Cliffs are the sides of a chasm, extending across one of the highest ridges of the Mendip Hills.
b. esp. (in modern use) A perpendicular face of rock on the seashore, or (less usually) overhanging a lake or river.
αa1000Andreas 310 (Gr.) Ofer cald cleofu ceoles neosan. c1325E.E. Allit. P. A. 159, I seȝ by-ȝonde þat myry mere A crystal clyffe ful relusaunt. 1387Trevisa Descr. Brit. (Caxton) 4 Whan shipmen passen the next clyf of that londe. 1593Shakes. 2 Hen. VI, iii. ii. 101 As farre as I could ken thy chalky Cliffes, When from thy Shore the Tempest beate vs backe. 1605― Lear iv. i. 76. 1605 Verstegan Dec. Intell. iv. (1628) 99 The cut off or broken mountaines on the sea sides, are more rightly and properly called clifs, then by the name of rocks or hills. 1709Addison Tatler No. 117 ⁋6 Diverting our selves upon the Top of the Cliff with the Prospect of the Sea. 1793Wordsw. Descr. Sk. 204 The wood-crowned cliffs that o'er the lake recline. 1879Froude Cæsar xvi. 263 The white cliffs which could be seen from Calais. Mod. The Wyndcliff towers above the Wye.
(β) sing. clĭve (properly dative), pl. clĭves. (The Elizabethan archaists made it clīves.)
c1205Lay. 21807 Þer heo leieien ȝeond þa cliues. Ibid. 32217 Ȝeond cludes & ȝeond cliuenen. c1300Cursor M. 1856 (Gött.) Oft wend þai þar schip suld riue wid wind or wawe or dint or cliue. c1320Sir Beues 2278 Him to a castel þai han idriue, Þat stant be þe se vpon a cliue. a1541Wyatt The faithful lover giveth, etc., Poet. Wks. 57 To seek each where man doth live The sea, the land, the rock, the clive. 1567Turberv. Myrr. Fall Pride (R.) Whome forceth he by surge of seas into Charybdes cliues [rime-wd. driues]? 1587Myrr. Mag., Albanact xliii, At length the shyning Albion clyues did feede Their gazing eyes.
†2. (Extension of 1 b): Land adjacent to a sea or lake; shore, coast, strand. Obs.
a1000Beowulf 3826 Þæt hie Geata clifu ongitan meahton. c1320Sir Beues 1790 Hii come to the cliue Thar the wilde se was. 1387Trevisa Higden (Rolls) I. 45 From þe clyue of occean [littore oceani] in Ethiopia. Ibid. I. 65 (Mätz.) In þe west clif [in occidentali littore] of litel Bretayne. 1398― Barth. De P. R. vii. lxvi. (1495) 282 Serpentes..whyche ben nyghe clyffes and bankes of waters. 1480Caxton Descr. Brit. 3 White rockes aboute the cliues of the see. 1600Tourneur Transf. Met. Author to Bk., O were thy margents cliffes of itching lust.
3. a. A steep slope, a declivity, a hill; = cleve 3. (In Lincolnshire, the sloping and cultivated escarpment of the oolite is called the Cliff.)[In this sense mediæval etymologists naturally identified clive with L. clīvus, with which it had no connexion.] a1200Moral Ode 347 To-ȝeanes þe cliue aȝean þe heȝe hulle. c1200Trin. Coll. Hom. 37 Hwile uppen cliues and hwile in þe dales. c1300K. Alis. 5429 The othere part away hy dryuen Into dales and into clyuen. c1420Pallad. on Husb. xii. 278 Nor clyves ther humoure is not excluse. c1440Promp. Parv. 81 Clyffe or an hylle [1499 clefe of an hyll], declivum. 1483Cath. Angl. 67 A Cliffe, cliuus. 1632Sir R. Le Grys Velleius 66 Running downe the cliffe of the Capitoll. 1870E. Peacock Ralf Skirl. II. 165 The base of the Cliff line of hills. 1870G. W. Dasent Annals III. 205 We went straight up the clive—the slope that leads through the Propylæa.
b. Golf. The face of a bunker.
1890H. G. Hutchinson Golf iv. 146 The nearer the ball lies to the cliff of the bunker, the farther behind the ball must the niblick-head dig down into the ground. 1904Westm. Gaz. 21 Oct. 4/2 To get over the bunker's cliff.
4. The strata of rock lying above or between coal seams.
1676Beaumont in Phil. Trans. XI. 732 All the clifts in some Mines are made up of these Stone-plants. 1719Strachey Strata Coal-M. ibid. XXX. 968 The Cliff..is dark or blackish Rock, and always keeps its regular Course as the Coal does, lying obliquely over it. 1721Bradley Philos. Acc. Wks. Nat. 7 A dark or blackish Rock, which they call the Coal Clives..The Cliff over this Vein is variegated with Cockle Shells and Fern Branches.
5. Comb., as cliff-bastion, cliff-bird, cliff-breeder, cliff-dweller, cliff-edge, cliff-face, cliff-house, cliff-nester, cliff-path, cliff-roost, cliff-side, cliff swallow, cliff-top, cliff-wall; cliff-bound, cliff-bred, cliff-breeding, cliff-chafed, cliff-embattled, cliff-encircled, cliff-girdled, cliff-girt, cliff-haunting, cliff-like, cliff-lurking, cliff-marked, cliff-nesting, cliff-ringed, cliff-sheltered, cliff-walled, cliff-worn adjs. or vbl. ns.; cliff-brake U.S., a fern of the genus Pellæa, esp. P. atropurpurea; cliff-dweller, (a) one who lives in or on a cliff; spec. in south-west U.S., an Indian belonging to one of the peoples that made their homes in caves or upon ledges in canyon walls; (b) U.S. slang, one who lives in a tall building; hence cliff-dwelling n. and adj.; cliff-pink, the Cheddar Pink, Dianthus cæsius.
1930J. S. Huxley Bird-Watching ii. 31 Our goal was the *cliff-bastion at the north end of Prince Charles's Foreland.
1940R. Perry Lundy i. 29 The naturalist inland..comes only to the coast for the summer nesting of the *cliff-birds. 1956Bannerman Birds Brit. Isl. V. 31 Ussher went so far as to state that in Ireland no great cliff-bird colony seems to be complete without its pair of falcons.
1918Mrs. Belloc Lowndes Out of the War? iii. 39 *Cliff-bound shore.
1867Gray Man. Bot. (ed. 5) 659 Pellæa. *Cliff-brake..P. atropurpurea..[grows on] dry calcareous rocks. 1941R. S. Walker Lookout 56 Purple cliffbreak finds congenial homes in the limestone ledges.
1614Chapman Odyss. iv. 809 Fitter far to feed a *cliff-bred goat.
1938Brit. Birds XXXII. 213 The Herring-Gull, usually a marine *cliff-breeder.
1920H. E. Howard Territory in Bird Life ii. 63 The *cliff-breeding species..are difficult to investigate. 1940Brit. Birds XXXIII. (title) Cliff-Breeding in the House-Martin.
1839–48Bailey Festus xxvii. 327 A *cliff-chafed sea.
1881Rep. Indian Affairs (U.S.) 137 The peach trees are supposed to have been originally planted by a superior race or by ancient explorers, possibly by the *cliff-dwellers. 1884Chamb. Jrnl. 19 Jan. 40/2 The houses of the cliff-dwellers. 1893H. B. Fuller (title) The cliff-dwellers [sense b]. 1916Amer. Mag. Apr. 31/2 You cliff-dweller on Manhattan, what would you do without Michigan? 1948Johnston Cities of Gold Rush 46/2 Like the cliff dwellers of the Southwest, the men who worked in those diggin's have vanished.
1888Science XI. 258/1 Some *cliff-dwellings in Walnut Cañon, about twelve miles southeast of Flagstaff, Arizona, were examined. 1910Cliff-dwelling [see cliff-house].
1903Kipling Five Nations 70 The wise turf cloaks the white *cliff edge. 1951S. Spender World within World v. 324 The prevailing winds..blew across the cliff-edge fields.
1859D. Masson Brit. Novelists i. 28 Dashing the eternal monotone of her many voices against a *cliff-embattled shore.
1885W. B. Yeats in Dublin Univ. Rev. May, Here is the place, the *cliff-encircled wood.
1906Westm. Gaz. 15 Oct. 2/3 Tomb'd on the steep *cliff-face, So to be nearer You. 1931Times Educ. Suppl. 14 Mar. p. i/2 Large boulders and tons of earth fell from the cliff-face near Plymouth Hoe.
1869Phillips Vesuv. viii. 203 *Cliff-girdled lakes.
1900Westm. Gaz. 4 Aug. 2/3 Stand firm upon thy *cliff-girt coast.
1890C. Dixon in Leisure Hour 685/1 This little group of rocky islets is the very metropolis of all our *cliff-haunting birds. 1903Kipling Five Nations 2 Unheralded cliff-haunting flaws.
1892Stevenson & Osbourne Wrecker viii. 125, I looked from the *cliff-house on the broad Pacific. 1910Encycl. Brit. VI. 507/1 Two special sorts of cliff-dwellings are distinguished by archaeologists, (1) the cliff-house, which is actually built on levels in the cliff, and (2) the cavate house, which is dug out, by using natural recesses or openings.
1856Emerson Eng. Traits, 1st Visit Eng. Wks. (Bohn) II. 6 Carlyle..was tall and gaunt, with a *cliff-like brow.
1901Kipling Kim xiii. 328 Unheralded *cliff-lurking flaws.
1953B. Campbell Finding Nests x. 157 Old nests of various other *cliff-nesters.
1954Bannerman Birds Brit. Isl. III. 387 *Cliff-nesting is by no means restricted to Britain.
1905Daily Chron. 18 Aug. 3/1 Dreaming along Cornish *cliff-paths.
1884Miller Plant-n., *Cliff-pink, or Cleve-pink, Dianthus cæsius.
1919W. de la Mare Flora 33 On the *cliff-ringed shore.
1953Bannerman Birds Brit. Isl. I. 13 Many rookeries harbour carrion crows on winter nights..and a *cliff-roost is sometimes shared with a party of ravens.
1939W. B. Yeats Last Poems 18 In some *cliff-sheltered bay.
1852M. Arnold Empedocles ii. 431 On the *cliff-side the pigeons. 1886Rudyard Kipling Departm. Ditties (ed. 2) 62 The hawk nests on the cliffside.
1825C. L. Bonaparte Amer. Ornith. I. 65 The *Cliff Swallow advances from the extreme western regions, annually invading a new territory farther to the eastward. 1841–4Emerson Ess. Manners Wks. (Bohn) I. 204 The rock-Tibboos still dwell in caves, like cliff-swallows.
1852M. Arnold Empedocles ii. 429 On the sward at the *cliff-top. 1916Blunden Pastorals 30 Go, cast it from the cliff-top while dawn stirs.
1855M. Arnold Balder Dead 82 Through the *cliff-wall, and a fresh stream runs down.
1927Kipling Verse 1885–1926 729 The *cliff-walled defiles.
1819Byron Juan ii. cviii, Before the entrance of a *cliff-worn cave.
▪ II. cliff, -e
obs. form of clef1. |