cliff
Pluralcliffs
- 1A face of rock that rises vertically, or very nearly so, from the ground around it.
Climbers spent the morning scaling the sheer cliff above the bay.
Erosion had carved dramatic cliffs along the entire coastline.
Similarprecipice
Note
A native word whose shape has barely shifted: Old English clif became Middle English clyf and then cliff, and behind it lies a Germanic root, *klibą. Its plural is simply cliffs, never with a v. Precipice is its closest synonym. The same spelling once stood for a musical symbol, but that is the old spelling of clef, a separate word with no tie to rock.
- 2A point beyond which something abruptly fails or sharply drops in value or performance.
Economists warned that ending the subsidies overnight could push exports off a cliff.
User engagement fell off a cliff the moment the paywall went up.
- 3Obsolete form of clef.
Note
Eighteenth-century music writers could still spell the staff symbol this way: John Harris's Lexicon Technicum (1723) speaks of learning to sing "in the Treble Cliff" and of notes in "the Tenor Cliff." Despite the shared spelling, this is a separate word from the rock face. In modern writing use clef. Keep cliff for quoting or deliberately imitating older musical texts, where it will otherwise look like a misprint.
Practice
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Origin
From Middle English 'clyf', from Old English 'clif', from Proto-West Germanic '*klib' and Proto-Germanic '*klibą'.