Word.ws English Dictionary

cliff

/klɪf/

More pronunciations (1)Fewer pronunciations

New Zealand/kləf/

cliff noun: a vertical (or nearly vertical) rock face. Also the obsolete form of clef.

cliff: a vertical (or nearly vertical) rock face
Image: Daniel Kraft, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Noun

cliff (plural cliffs)

  1. A vertical (or nearly vertical) rock face.
    • , scar
    Synonyms:
    precipice
  2. (figuratively) A point beyond which something abruptly fails or decreases in value, performance, etc.

Proper noun capitalized: Cliff

Cliff

  1. A diminutive of the male given name Clifford or Clifton.
  2. A surname.
  3. An unincorporated community and coal town in Floyd County, Kentucky, United States.
  4. A census-designated place in Grant County, New Mexico, United States.
  5. A hamlet in North Warwickshire district, Warwickshire, England (OS grid ref SP2198).
  6. A neighbourhood, The Cliff, in the Metropolitan Borough of Salford, Greater Manchester, England (OS grid ref SD8201).
  7. A small settlement on the Isle of Lewis, Western Isles council area, Scotland, appearing on OS maps as Cliobh (OS grid ref NB0835).

Also used as

cliff is also the obsolete form of clef.

cliff meaning in Hindi, Tamil, Urdu and Bengali

cliff in Hindi

a (near) vertical rock face
चट्टान caṭṭān

cliff in Tamil

a (near) vertical rock face
செங்குத்துப் பாறை ceṅkuttup pāṟai

cliff in Urdu

کلف

cliff in Bengali

ক্লিফ
More languagesFewer languages
cliff in Malayalam
പാറ pāṟa
cliff in Kannada
ಕಮರಿ kamari
cliff in Gujarati
કરાડ karāḍ, ભેખડ bhekhaḍ
cliff in Odia
କ୍ଲିଫ୍
cliff in Sanskrit
भृगुः bhṛguḥ
cliff in Nepali
भीर bhīra
cliff in Tagalog
dahilig, duminding, dalisdis, talampas
cliff in Arabic
جُرْف jurf
cliff in Malay
cenuram
cliff in Indonesian
tebing
cliff in Persian
پرتگاه partgâh
cliff in Thai
ผา pǎa
cliff in Vietnamese
vách đá
cliff in Myanmar
နတ်သမီးကမ်းပါး natsa.mi:kam:pa:

Examples of cliff in a sentence

  • They are at loggerheads over how best to tackle the fiscal cliff.
  • We enjoyed standing at the edge of the cliff, being fanned by the wind.
  • I grabbed her hand to pull her back from the cliff edge.

All 40 example sentences with cliff

Synonyms of cliff

Forms of cliff

pluralcliffs

Plural of cliff: cliffs

Origin of cliff

From Middle English clyf, from Old English clif, from Proto-West Germanic *klib, from Proto-Germanic *klibą.

The given name is from shortenings of the diminutives. The surname is from the noun cliff.

Words formed from cliff

Phrases with cliff

12 more phrasesFewer phrases

Words that rhyme with cliff

28 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about cliff

What does cliff mean?
Cliff means a vertical (or nearly vertical) rock face.
What is cliff in Hindi?
Cliff in Hindi is चट्टान (caṭṭān). See Cliff meaning in Hindi.
What part of speech is cliff?
Cliff can be a noun or a proper noun.
How do you pronounce cliff?
Cliff is pronounced /klɪf/.
What is the plural of cliff?
The plural of cliff is cliffs.

Words near cliff in the dictionary

  1. Cliett
  2. Clietts
  3. Clif
  4. Clifden
  5. Clifdenian
  6. cliff
  7. cliff cave
  8. cliff caves
  9. cliff edge
  10. cliff edges
  11. cliff face

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: cliff (page history and authors); Cliff (page history and authors); cliff (Urdu, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); cliff (Bengali, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); cliff (Odia, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: En-us-cliff.ogg.

Cite this entry: “cliff.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/cliff. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.