scarp

Aphetic form of escarp. Doublet of escarp.

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /skɑːp/

  • Audio (Southern England):

    (file)

• (General American) IPA^(key): /skɑɹp/
• Rhymes: -ɑː(ɹ)p

scarp (plural scarps)

1. The steep artificial slope below a fort's parapet.
2. (geology) A cliff at the edge of a plateau or ridge caused by erosion or faulting; the steeper side of an escarpment.
   • 2014, Paul Salopek, Blessed. Cursed. Claimed., National Geographic (December 2014)[1]

     Sweating under the sun, we scale the barren eastern scarp of the Great Rift Valley (Area B), edging carefully around controversial, razor-wired Israeli settlements (Area C).

3. (heraldry) Obsolete spelling of scarpe, scrape.
   • 1673, Matthew Carter, Honor Redivivus: Or, The Analysis of Honor and Armory, page 211:

     [...] as in the seventh, which is Argent a Scarp Azure.

   • 1724, John Guillim, A Display of Heraldry, page 38:

     He beareth Argent, a Scarp, Azure.

scarp (third-person singular simple present scarps, present participle scarping, simple past and past participle scarped)

1. (earth science, geography, transitive) to cut, scrape, erode, or otherwise make into a scarp or escarpment

   to scarp the face of a ditch or a rock

   • 1850, [Alfred, Lord Tennyson], “(please specify |part=Prologue or Rpilogue, or |canto=I to CXXIX)”, in In Memoriam, London: Edward Moxon, […], →OCLC:

     From scarped cliff and quarried stone

   • 1867, Ralph Waldo Emerson, “May-Day”, in May-Day and Other Pieces, Boston, Mass.: Ticknor and Fields, →OCLC, page 38:

     For thou, O Spring! canst renovate / All that high God did first create. / […] / Sweep ruins from the scarped mountain, / Cleanse the torrent at the fountain, […]

• APCRs, Carps, RSPCA, carps, craps, parcs, pracs, scrap

From Proto-West Germanic *skarp, from Proto-Germanic *skarpaz.

scarp

1. sharp

• Middle Dutch: scharp
  • Dutch: scherp
    • Afrikaans: skerp
    • Berbice Creole Dutch: skarpu
    • Negerhollands: skerp
    • Skepi Creole Dutch: skarp
    • → Papiamentu: skèrpi, skerpi, scherpi
    • →? Sranan Tongo: srapu
      • → Saramaccan: saápu
  • Limburgish: sjèrp

• “skarp”, in Oudnederlands Woordenboek, 2012

scarp m (plural scarpi)

1. obsolete form of scarpă

• scarp in Academia Română, Micul dicționar academic, ediția a II-a, Bucharest: Univers Enciclopedic, 2010. →ISBN