Scarp
noun, verb ·Moderate ·College level
Definitions
- 1 The steep artificial slope below a fort's parapet.
- 2 a steep artificial slope in front of a fortification wordnet
- 3 A cliff at the edge of a plateau or ridge caused by erosion or faulting; the steeper side of an escarpment.
"2014, Paul Salopek, Blessed. Cursed. Claimed., National Geographic (December 2014)https://web.archive.org/web/20150212214621/http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2014/12/pilgrim-roads/salopek-text Sweating under the sun, we scale the barren eastern scarp of the Great Rift Valley (Area B), edging carefully around controversial, razor-wired Israeli settlements (Area C)."
- 4 a long steep slope or cliff at the edge of a plateau or ridge; usually formed by erosion wordnet
- 5 Obsolete spelling of scarpe, scrape. alt-of, obsolete
"[...] as in the seventh, which is Argent a Scarp Azure."
- 1 to cut, scrape, erode, or otherwise make into a scarp or escarpment transitive
"to scarp the face of a ditch or a rock"
Example
More examples"2014, Paul Salopek, Blessed. Cursed. Claimed., National Geographic (December 2014)https://web.archive.org/web/20150212214621/http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2014/12/pilgrim-roads/salopek-text Sweating under the sun, we scale the barren eastern scarp of the Great Rift Valley (Area B), edging carefully around controversial, razor-wired Israeli settlements (Area C)."
Etymology
Apheretic form of escarp. Doublet of escarp.
Related phrases
More for "scarp"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.