ridge
/rɪdʒ
/noun
1A long, narrow hilltop, mountain range, or watershed: the North-East ridge of Everest...
- Midweek, Stefan's group will visit the villages of Magura and Pestera, where houses are built along the mountain ridges which flank deep ravines and valleys.
- Venus has a complex surface, with plains, mountains, volcanoes, ridges, rift valleys, and a few impact craters.
- With its river beds, attractive hill ridges and stunning mountains, it provides city dwellers access to nature right on their doorstep.
1.1The line or edge formed where the two sloping sides of a roof meet at the top: the roof was unusual due to the relative heights of the eaves and the ridge...
- The continuous surface helped by removing the requirement for distinctions between wall and roof, eliminating all need for ridges, eaves and even changes of plane.
- The ridge of the upper-floor ceiling is offset from the central ridge of the gable roof above.
- Roof ridges had to be carefully supported in their original positions to retain the roof's authentic curvature.
1.2A narrow raised band on a surface: buff your nails in order to smooth ridges...
- While the ventral face of the centrum generally is covered with an undulating pattern of faint ridges, the lateral surfaces are more or less smooth.
- The varnish smoothes out the gaps and ridges on the surface of the teeth and prevents the build-up of plaque, which causes decay.
- Using pipe insulation, carpet padding and polyurethane fill, he has raised ridges and mounds within his paint surfaces.
1.3A raised strip of arable land, especially (in medieval fields) one of a set separated by furrows: a path led through the ridges and furrows of fields long left to nature...
- The field to the south shows undulating medieval ridge and furrow.
- The 70-acre grassed area has important historical and archaeological features including ridges and furrows of medieval cultivation as well as a rich store of flora and fauna.
- Applying one to two inches of water after the seed has been planted will cause soil particles to dislodge and move from the tops of soil ridges into the seed furrow.
2 Meteorology An elongated region of high barometric pressure: a high-pressure ridge helping to steer cyclones further south...
- In between our fronts are ridges of high pressure.
- A week of sunshine and showers followed as a ridge of high pressure dominated.
- The first is the ridge of high pressure which exists between depressions moving from west to east steered by the upper-level jet stream.
verb [with object] (often as adjective ridged)
1Mark with or form into ridges: the ridged sand of the beach a field ploughed in narrow stretches that are ridged up slightly...
- The protoconidmetaconid notch is broadly open, forming a shallow U-shaped valley, and there is no raised protocristid; the enamel of the valley surface is moderately ridged and grooved.
- Growing to a height of some thirty metres, the bark is distinctively ridged and furrowed and has characteristic large burrs or bosses.
- Starting way back in time - the ground is ridged with long earthworks, there are large round tumuli and there are standing stones that look like a circle on the horizon as you approach them but perhaps are more of a line.
1.1 [no object] (Of a surface) form into or rise up as a ridge: the crust of the earth ridged...
- But for the rest, and that's close on half the top 20, ambition now revolves around grasping the coat-tails of the boom-boom bandwagon and hanging on for dear life as it rattles along a road ridged around a ravine.
- A disruption of the distal matrix may cause problems with the deeper layers, resulting in ridging or splitting.
Derivatives
ridgy
- Then he cut the thick, tough, black ridgy bark off the logs.
Origin
Old English hrycg 'spine, crest', of Germanic origin; related to Dutch rug and German Rücken 'back'.