cluse

In many cases, italicized as a borrowing of French cluse. In Early Modern texts, possibly a continuation of Middle English cluse, Old English clūse (“narrow pass”).

• IPA^(key): /kluz/

cluse (plural cluses)

1. A defile or narrow gorge, especially one that cuts transversely through the rock of an otherwise continuous ridge.
   • 1876, Elisée Reclus, The Earth and Its Inhabitants: France and Switzerland, page 150:

     [...] others are bounded by the steep walls of the cluses, these being the most picturesque; others, again, occupy the combes referred to above.

   • 1892, Proceedings of the Boston Society of Natural History, page 402:

     Penck states that many a cluse in the Jura may have been formed by subterranean streams widening their channels until the covering broke down and their subterranean valleys became exposed […]

   • 1953, O. D. von Engeln, Geomorphology: Systematic and Regional, page 324:

     […] narrow cluses still exist. The distinctive nature of the geomorphic forms of the Jura is indicated by the fact that each such item is identified locally by a particular term.

   • 2024, Kholoud Kahime, Mohamed El Yamani, Stéphane Pouffary, Climate Change Effects and Sustainability Needs, page 83:

     […] cut by the wadis of the Atlas which gave birth to very steep cluses (Lechhab 1991).

From Latin clusa.

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cluse f (plural cluses)

1. water gap
2. defile

• “cluse”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.

clūse

1. vocative masculine singular of clūsus

• clūs

From Proto-West Germanic *klūsā.

• IPA^(key): /ˈkluː.se/, [ˈkluː.ze]

clūse f

1. bar, bolt
2. enclosure
3. a narrow pass or passageway
4. cell; prison
5. dam

Weak n-stem:

• mynsterclūse

• beclȳsan
• clȳsan
• forclȳsan

• Middle English: cluse, clouse, clowse