ridge
Language: English
Part of speech: noun
Pronunciation: enpr: rĭj
ipa: /ɹɪd͡ʒ/
rhymes: -ɪdʒ
Forms: form: ridges
form: rig
Etymology: From Middle English rigge, rygge, (also rig, ryg, rug), from Old English hryċġ (“back, spine, ridge, elevated surface”), from Proto-West Germanic *hrugi, from Proto-Germanic *hrugjaz (“back”), from Proto-Indo-European *(s)krewk-, *(s)ker- (“to turn, bend”).
Cognate with Scots rig (“back, spine, ridge”), North Frisian reg (“back”), West Frisian rêch (“back”), Dutch rug (“back, ridge”), German Rücken (“back, ridge”), Swedish rygg (“back, spine, ridge”), Icelandic hryggur (“spine”). Cognate to Albanian kërrus (“to bend one's back”) and kurriz (“back”).
Senses: examples: text: He thought it was no time to ſtay, / And let the Night too ſteal away, / But in a trice advanced the Knight, / Upon the Bare Ridge, Bolt upright, / And groping out for Ralpho’s Jade, / He found the Saddle too was ſtraid[…]
ref: 1677 (indicated as 1678), [Samuel Butler], “[The Third Part of Hudibras]. Canto I.”, in Hudibras. The Third and Last Part. […], London: […] Robert Horne, […], published 1679, →OCLC; republished in A[lfred] R[ayney] Waller, editor, Hudibras: Written in the Time of the Late Wars, Cambridge, Cambridgeshire: University Press, 1905, →OCLC, pages 237–238:
topics: anatomy
medicine
sciences
glosses: The back of any animal; especially the upper or projecting part of the back of a quadruped.
examples: text: The plough threw up ridges of earth between the furrows.
antonyms: groove
glosses: Any extended protuberance; a projecting line or strip.
examples: text: mountain ridge
text: It was not far from the house; but the ground sank into a depression there, and the ridge of it behind shut out everything except just the roof of the tallest hayrick.
ref: 1879, R[ichard] J[efferies], chapter 1, in The Amateur Poacher, London: Smith, Elder, & Co., […], →OCLC:
glosses: The line along which two sloping surfaces meet which diverge towards the ground.
examples: text: Maccario, it was evident, did not care to take the risk of blundering upon a picket, and a man led them by twisting paths until at last the hacienda rose blackly before them. Appleby could see it dimly, a blur of shadowy buildings with the ridge of roof parapet alone cutting hard and sharp against the clearing sky.
ref: 1907 January, Harold Bindloss, chapter 26, in The Dust of Conflict, 1st Canadian edition, Toronto, Ont.: McLeod & Allen, →OCLC:
glosses: The highest point on a roof, represented by a horizontal line where two roof areas intersect, running the length of the area.
examples: text: the British Guards lie down behind a ridge to avoid the shot and shell from the opposite heights
ref: 1853-1855, Joachim Hayward Stocqueler, The Life of Field-Marshal the Duke of Wellington:
topics: fortifications
government
military
politics
war
glosses: The highest portion of the glacis proceeding from the salient angle of the covered way.
examples: text: […]Which to maintaine, I would allow him oddes, / And meete him, were I tide to runne afoote, / Euen to the frozen ridges of the Alpes, / Or any other ground inhabitable, / Where euer Engliſhman durſt ſet his foote.
ref: 1595 December 9 (first known performance), William Shakespeare, “The Life and Death of King Richard the Second”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies: Published According to the True Originall Copies (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act I, scene i], lines 62–66:
glosses: A chain of mountains.
glosses: A chain of hills.
topics: geography
natural-sciences
oceanography
glosses: A long narrow elevation on an ocean bottom.
topics: climatology
meteorology
natural-sciences
antonyms: trough
glosses: An elongated region of high atmospheric pressure.
Derived terms: Acalanes Ridge
alveolar ridge
apical ectodermal ridge
barrier ridge
Basking Ridge
beach ridge
Blue Ridge
brow ridge
Cato Ridge
Cedar Ridge
combing ridge
Glen Ridge
interridge
Kelly Ridge
Maple Ridge
microridge
mid-oceanic ridge
mid-ocean ridge
Mission Ridge
nanoridge
Oak Ridge
Oakridge
oblique ridge
orbital ridge
Park Ridge
Pliocene Ridge
pressure ridge
Ridge
ridgeback
ridge beam
ridgebone
ridge course
Ridgefield
ridge harrow
ridgeless
ridgelet
ridgelike
ridgepiece
ridgeplate
ridge plough
ridge pole
ridge push
ridge road
ridge rope
ridge-runner
ridgeside
ridge tent
ridge tile
ridgetop
ridge vent
ridgewise
ridgy
round-ridge
runridge
sandridge
Sand Ridge
Sandridge
Shelly Ridge
trail ridge scrub grasshopper
unridged
upridge
Walnut Ridge
Wheat Ridge
Wood-Ridge
Wyandot Ridge