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PRECIPICE
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I. (noun)
Sense 1
Meaning:
A very steep cliff
Classified under:
Nouns denoting natural objects (not man-made)
Hypernyms ("precipice" is a kind of...):
cliff; drop; drop-off (a steep high face of rock)
Derivation:
precipitous (extremely steep)
Context examples:
It was a pictorial sheet, and Jo examined the work of art nearest her, idly wondering what fortuitous concatenation of circumstances needed the melodramatic illustration of an Indian in full war costume, tumbling over a precipice with a wolf at his throat, while two infuriated young gentlemen, with unnaturally small feet and big eyes, were stabbing each other close by, and a disheveled female was flying away in the background with her mouth wide open.
(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)
At least God's mercy is better than that of these monsters, and the precipice is steep and high.
(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)
The others, screaming and clawing, were thrust over the precipice, and went hurtling down, as their prisoners had of old, on to the sharp bamboos six hundred feet below.
(The Lost World, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
The sun is yet high in the heavens; before it descends to hide itself behind your snowy precipices and illuminate another world, you will have heard my story and can decide.
(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)
There was a dark gloom in my solitary chamber, when I at length returned to it; but I was tired now, and, getting into bed again, fell—off a tower and down a precipice—into the depths of sleep.
(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)
There are great, frowning precipices and much falling water, and Nature seem to have held sometime her carnival.
(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)
From that direction the place is really inaccessible, and, were it not for a hardish ledge which runs at the very base of the precipice, we should have had to turn back.
(The Lost World, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
I feel as if I were walking on the edge of a precipice, towards which thousands are crowding and endeavouring to plunge me into the abyss.
(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)
From the windows I could see that the suite of rooms lay along to the south of the castle, the windows of the end room looking out both west and south. On the latter side, as well as to the former, there was a great precipice.
(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)
As he vanished from sight, the whole assembly, except the guards, rushed forward to the edge of the precipice, and there was a long pause of absolute silence, broken by a mad yell of delight.
(The Lost World, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
