peneplainn.
/ˈpiːnᵻpleɪn/, /ˈpɛnᵻpleɪn/, /ˌpiːnᵻˈpleɪn/, /ˌpɛnᵻˈpleɪn/, U.S. /ˈpinəˌpleɪn/ Geomorphology.
A low, nearly featureless tract of land of gently undulating relief, esp. one held to be the product of long-continued subaerial erosion of land undisturbed by crustal movement and to represent the penultimate stage in the cycle of erosion in a humid climate. Also: a former surface of this kind subsequently uplifted and dissected, or buried as an unconformity. Also figurative.
ΘΚΠ
the world > the earth > land > landscape > level land > [noun] > level place or plain > peneplain
peneplain1889
palaeoplain1900
1889 W. M. Davis in Amer. Jrnl. Sci. 37 430 Given time enough, and the faulted ridges of Connecticut must be reduced to a low base-level plain. I believe that time enough has already been allowed, and that the strong Jurassic topography was really worn out somewhere in Cretaceous time, when all this part of the country was reduced to a nearly featureless plain, a ‘peneplain’, as I would call it, at a low level.
1893 Bull. Dept. Geol. Univ. Calif. 1 iv. 158 The tilting of the Sierra Nevada peneplane was also a post-Pliocene event.
1933 Geogr. Jrnl. 81 331 These ‘residual mountains’ rise from a peneplain, that is, a plain of erosion produced during a stable period interrupting an upward movement.
1960 B. W. Sparks Geomorphol. xv. 335 Good examples of peneplains are extremely rare and some would say that they do not exist.
1964 Listener 27 Feb. 353/2 In the eyes of a stray bitch Ribbed with hunger, heavy with young, I saw the peneplain of all imagined Misery.
1993 J. Pournelle & S. M. Stirling Prince of Sparta 179 The settlement of Stora Mine lies on an eroded peneplane at the northeastern edge of Storaberg Mt.
This entry has been updated (OED Third Edition, September 2005; most recently modified version published online March 2022).
peneplainv.
/ˈpiːnᵻpleɪn/, /ˈpɛnᵻpleɪn/, /ˌpiːnᵻˈpleɪn/, /ˌpɛnᵻˈpleɪn/, U.S. /ˈpinəˌpleɪn/ Geomorphology.
transitive. To erode to a peneplain.
ΘΚΠ
the world > the earth > structure of the earth > formation of features > erosion or weathering > erode [verb (transitive)] > erosion of specific features
peneplain1896
overdeepen1905
planate1906
lateritize1909
karstify1972
1896 Science 9 Oct. 524/2 The lands may have been more than once uplifted, dissected and peneplained.
1923 Bull. Geol. Soc. Amer. 34 210 The ‘Kratogens’, once the area of the most ancient geosynclines, may, after they are peneplained, be widely flooded by epeiric seas.
1931 N. M. Fenneman Physiogr. Western U.S. iv. 172 The original folds of all these mountains were approximately peneplaned.
1970 R. J. Small Study of Landforms v. 164 The English Chalk country..may well have been effectively peneplained during the Pliocene period.
2000 Columbia Encycl. (ed. 6) 31359 The sediments of the California Miocene came chiefly from the Sierra Nevada and the Klamaths, which, through erosion, were peneplained by the close of the epoch.
This entry has been updated (OED Third Edition, September 2005; most recently modified version published online March 2022).
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n.1889v.1896