cliff
part of speech
noun (a cliff, cliffs)
meaning for a pupil
1) A cliff is a high, steep wall of rock or earth, often at the edge of the sea. tree →
2) A cliffhanger is a story or episode that ends at an exciting moment so you want to know what happens next. tree →
sense in the lessons
In geography lessons cliffs are formed by erosion as waves wear the rock away; in safety lessons you stay away from cliff edges, which can crumble. Phrases: «the edge of the cliff», «cliff top», «chalk cliffs», «cliff path», «cliffhanger».
examples
- The White Cliffs of Dover are made of chalk. tree →
- Stay away from the edge of the cliff. tree →
- Seabirds nest on the cliffs. tree →
- We walked along the cliff path. tree →
- The waves crash against the cliffs. tree →
- The book ended on a cliffhanger. tree →
- The cliff edge was crumbling, so they put up a fence. tree →
- The Goat looked over the edge of the cliff. tree →
note
Countable. Double f. Safety: cliff edges can give way without warning, and the bottom can be cut off by the tide; keep behind fences and check tide times on beaches under cliffs.
In the corpora
- Cartoons break the rules of physics on purpose to be funny, like running off a cliff and falling only after looking down.
- The cliff-jumping lemming myth was spread by a 1958 Disney film in which the film makers pushed lemmings over a cliff.
- Lemmings do not jump off cliffs on purpose; the famous 1958 film scene was staged by bringing lemmings in and pushing them off.
- Some books and quizzes still repeat the cliff myth, because people copy facts without checking where they came from.
- The cliff story spread from a 1958 nature film in which people pushed lemmings off a cliff for the camera.
Trees and pragmatics
Every meaning and example of «cliff» parsed by Mova, each sentence with its dependency tree and frames.