declivity
/dɪˈklɪvɪti
/noun (plural declivities) formal
A downward slope: a thickly wooded declivity...
- Set in the Catskill Mountains, the canvas's foreground depicts a logged-over declivity through which runs a thin trickle of water that carries the viewer's eye toward a farmhouse barely visible in the shadows.
- Their private apartment rising to a two-storey townhouse overlooking the golf course and encompassing vistas that include the Nephin mountains and a gradual declivity of agricultural land that snuggles in the Moy estuary.
- The Brahmaputra River, one of the great rivers of the world, pours down from Tibet, in a steep declivity, into Assam, down toward Bangladesh and the Bay of Bengal.
Derivatives
declivitous
/ adjective ...- To get from the police post to the crater you descend the declivitous wall of the old volcano, with its layers of hardened lava at the top and scree at the bottom.
- She had been climbing up the declivitous trail for hours and had lost her footing more than once, so the safety of a relatively flat expanse was welcome indeed.
- Elevated mounds, with steep declivitous sides, are found in places, rising abruptly out of the midst of a plain, to considerable heights.
Origin
Early 17th century: from Latin declivitas, from declivis 'sloping down', from de- 'down' + clivus 'a slope'.