| / English Dictionary |
RIFT
| Pronunciation (US): |  | (GB): | |
I. (noun)
Sense 1
Meaning:
A personal or social separation (as between opposing factions)
Example:
they hoped to avoid a break in relations
Synonyms:
breach; break; falling out; rift; rupture; severance
Classified under:
Hypernyms ("rift" is a kind of...):
breakup; detachment; separation (coming apart)
Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "rift"):
schism (the formal separation of a church into two churches or the withdrawal of one group over doctrinal differences)
Sense 2
Meaning:
A narrow fissure in rock
Classified under:
Nouns denoting natural objects (not man-made)
Hypernyms ("rift" is a kind of...):
cleft; crack; crevice; fissure; scissure (a long narrow opening)
Sense 3
Meaning:
A gap between cloud masses
Example:
the sun shone through a rift in the clouds
Classified under:
Nouns denoting natural objects (not man-made)
Hypernyms ("rift" is a kind of...):
gap; opening (an open or empty space in or between things)
Context examples:
However, seismic imaging has shown that mantle heat in this region may reach the ice sheet through a rift, that is, a fracture in Earth's crust such as appears in Africa's Great Rift Valley.
(Hot News from the Antarctic Underground, NASA)
It was a small rift, not larger than a window, but it was enough for all our purposes.
(The Lost World, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
A dull wrack was drifting slowly across the sky, and a star or two twinkled dimly here and there through the rifts of the clouds.
(The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
As far as the eye can reach is a sea of green tree tops, with occasionally a deep rift where there is a chasm.
(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)
It’s difficult because there are not enough measurements available on either the forces acting on the rift or the composition of the ice shelf.
(Massive Iceberg Breaks Off from Antarctica, NASA)
You would not call it murder if you could precipitate me into one of those ice-rifts and destroy my frame, the work of your own hands.
(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)
And in that moment, and for the moment, she was aware of a rift that showed in her certitude—a rift through which she caught sight of the real Martin Eden, splendid and invincible; and as animal-trainers have their moments of doubt, so she, for the instant, seemed to doubt her power to tame this wild spirit of a man.
(Martin Eden, by Jack London)
If we chose to roll upon our right sides, the whole weald lay in front of us, with the North Downs curving away in olive-green folds, with here and there the snow-white rift of a chalk-pit; if we turned upon our left, we overlooked the huge blue stretch of the Channel.
(Rodney Stone, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
The night had already fallen, and the moon was shining between the rifts of ragged, drifting clouds, before Alleyne Edricson, footsore and weary from the unwonted exercise, found himself in front of the forest inn which stood upon the outskirts of Lyndhurst.
(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
The blind was drawn but I found a rift at the sill.
(The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald)
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