Word.ws English Dictionary

scarp

/skɑːp/US/skɑɹp/

scarp noun: the steep artificial slope below a fort's parapet. Also the obsolete spelling of scarpe.

Noun

scarp (plural scarps)

  1. The steep artificial slope below a fort's parapet.
    • —I would throw out the earth upon this hand towards the town for the scarp,—and on that hand towards the campaign for the counterscarp.—Very right, Trim, quoth my uncle Toby:—And when I had sloped them to your mind,——an’ please your Honour, I would face the glacis, as the finest fortifications are...1659, Laurence Sterne, chapter XXX, in The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman
  2. A cliff at the edge of a plateau or ridge caused by erosion or faulting; the steeper side of an escarpment.
    • 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).2014, Paul Salopek, Blessed. Cursed. Claimed., National Geographic (December 2014)https://web.archive.org/web/20150212214621/http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2014/12/pilgrim-roads/salopek-text

Verb

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

  1. (transitive, earth science) to cut, scrape, erode, or otherwise make into a scarp or escarpment
    • to scarp the face of a ditch or a rock
    • From scarped cliff and quarried stone1850, [Alfred, Lord Tennyson], “(please specify |part=Prologue or Epilogue, or |canto=I to CXXIX)”, in In Memoriam, London: Edward Moxon, […], →OCLC

Also used as

scarp is also the obsolete spelling of scarpe.

Forms of scarp

Noun
pluralscarps
Verb
third-person singular presentscarps
present participlescarping
past participlescarped
pastscarped

Origin of scarp

Apheretic form of escarp. Doublet of escarp.

Words formed from scarp

Phrases with scarp

Words that rhyme with scarp

Questions about scarp

What does scarp mean?
Scarp means the steep artificial slope below a fort's parapet.
What part of speech is scarp?
Scarp can be a noun or a verb.
How do you pronounce scarp?
Scarp is pronounced /skɑːp/ (UK).
What is the plural of scarp?
The plural of scarp is scarps.

Words near scarp in the dictionary

  1. scaroid
  2. scaroids
  3. Scarola
  4. Scarolas
  5. scaroused
  6. scarp
  7. Scarpa
  8. Scarpa's triangle
  9. scarpariello
  10. Scarpas
  11. Scarpati

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: scarp (page history and authors). 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: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-scarp.wav.

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