Karst
name, noun ·Rare ·Advanced level
Definitions
- 1 A type of land formation, usually with many caves formed through the dissolving of limestone by underground drainage.
"In the time available to us on our geomorphological tour we were not able to see the higher and younger karsts of Kweichow and Yunnan and Kunming."
- 1 A mountainous karst plateau in northeastern Italy and southwestern Slovenia; in full, Karst Plateau.
Example
More examples"In the time available to us on our geomorphological tour we were not able to see the higher and younger karsts of Kweichow and Yunnan and Kunming."
Etymology
Borrowed from German Karst. The German term and the Slovene placename Kras (the Karst Plateau) are from Proto-Slavic *korsъ, from Italo-Dalmatian carsus (cf. Italian carso), possibly from Proto-Indo-European *ker- (“hard; rock”). More at Karst. The metathesis in the Slovene term precludes German borrowing from Slovene.
Borrowed from German Karst.
Related phrases
More for "karst"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.