Dictionary

scarp en · NOUN

Pronunciation

• /skɑɹp/ (General-American)
• /skɑːp/ (Received-Pronunciation)
• (Southern-England) audio

Etymology

Apheretic form of escarp. Doublet of escarp.

Meanings

1. The steep artificial slope below a fort's parapet.
   • —I would throw out the earth upon this hand towards the town for the scarp,—and on that hand towards the campaign for the counterscarp.—Very right, Trim, quoth my uncle Toby:—And when I had sloped them to your mind,——an’ please your Honour, I would face the glacis, as the finest fortifications are done in Flanders, with sods,——and as your Honour knows they should be,—and I would make the walls and parapets with sods too. 1659, Laurence Sterne, chapter XXX, in The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman:
2. 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).
3. (alt-of, obsolete) Obsolete spelling of scarpe, scrape.
   alt of scarpe
   alt of scrape
   • He beareth Argent, a Scarp, Azure. 1724, John Guillim, A Display of Heraldry, page 38:
   • [...] as in the seventh, which is Argent a Scarp Azure. 1673, Matthew Carter, Honor Redivivus: Or, The Analysis of Honor and Armory, page 211:

Forms

Deriveds

fault scarp · scarpland · scarplet · anti-scarp · backscarp · counterscarp

Translations (12)

ga scairp (cliff caused by erosion) · ota قیا (cliff caused by erosion) · bg стръмен склон (cliff caused by erosion) · pl skarpa (cliff caused by erosion) · fr escarpe (artificial slope) · fi jyrkänne (cliff caused by erosion) · ota یار (cliff caused by erosion) · fi eskarppi (artificial slope) · bg скарп (artificial slope) · gsw Flueh (cliff caused by erosion) · fi vieru (artificial slope) · hu szakadásfal (cliff caused by erosion)

scarp en · VERB

Pronunciation

• /skɑɹp/ (General-American)
• /skɑːp/ (Received-Pronunciation)
• (Southern-England) audio

Etymology

Apheretic form of escarp. Doublet of escarp.

Meanings

1. (qualifier:earth science, transitive) to cut, scrape, erode, or otherwise make into a scarp or escarpment
   • to scarp the face of a ditch or a rock
   • For thou, O Spring! canst renovate / All that high God did first create. / […] / Sweep ruins from the scarped mountain, / Cleanse the torrent at the fountain, […] 1867, Ralph Waldo Emerson, “May-Day”, in May-Day and Other Pieces, Boston, Mass.: Ticknor and Fields, →OCLC, page 38:
   • From scarped cliff and quarried stone 1850, [Alfred, Lord Tennyson], “(please specify |part=Prologue or Epilogue, or |canto=I to CXXIX)”, in In Memoriam, London: Edward Moxon, […], →OCLC:

Forms