Translation
cliff, a sheer rock face at the coast
Word origin
A Germanic borrowing, from English cliff and German Klippe, both from an old root meaning a steep rock. Esperanto usually reaches for Latin or French; here the English word was already the international one for a coastal rock wall, so it came in unchanged apart from the -o.
- Origin
- Germanic
- Root
- cliff
- English cognates
- cliff, klipp
Examples
.
The house stands on a high cliff above the sea.
.
The waves beat against the foot of the cliff.
.
From the cliff we saw three ships.
One root, and a narrow one. is a single borrowed root with the noun
ending on it, and it does not decompose. More usefully, it is not a general word
for high ground. A is a wall: near vertical, usually rock, usually at
the coast. If the ground merely rises you want monto
at rank 473 for a mountain or hill, and if you mean the loose stone itself,
roko at 1,289.
The three words that fence it in. Bordo at 561 is
the shore, the line where land meets water, and a cliff is one kind of bordo
among many. Rando at 1,526 is the edge you stand on at
the top. Kruta at 2,294 is the adjective that does the
real work: a is a tautology, but is how you get
down one. The derived forms behave: klifa for cliff-like, o for a low
one, and the compound marklifo when you need to say the sea is at the bottom.
Where you will actually meet it. Geography, coastal description and the sort of narration where somebody looks out at the water. It is a scenery word, which is why it sits this late in the list: the course has had maro since rank 269 and only now needs the thing at its edge.
Where this fits
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klifo: worksheet, infographic and listicle
Free printable study downloads for the Esperanto word "klifo" (cliff, a sheer rock face at the coast): a worksheet with the answer key built in, an infographic, and a sentence listicle. Open any one to view, print or save.
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Start your free weekThis word is part of lesson 59.