rift
verb
- splitting, developing a fissure
noun
- linear zone where the Earth's crust and lithosphere are being pulled apart[; example of extensional tectonics
- the act or process of splitting or developing a fissure
Wiktionary
Pronunciation: /ɹɪft/
noun
Etymology: From Middle English rift, of North Germanic origin; akin to Danish rift, Norwegian Bokmål rift (“breach”), Old Norse rífa (“to tear”). More at rive.
- A chasm or fissure.
“The Grand Canyon is a rift in the Earth's surface, but is smaller than some of the undersea ones.”
“Where ashes are heaped in drifts / Over vineyard and field and town, / Whenever he starts and lifts / His head through the blackened rifts / Of the crags that keep him down”
- A lack of cohesion; a state of conflict, incompatibility, or emotional distance.
“My marriage is in trouble: the fight created a rift between us and we can't reconnect.”
“Elon Musk, the billionaire tech entrepreneur, has opened a new rift with Donald Trump by denouncing the US president’s tax and spending bill as a “disgusting abomination”.”
- A break in the clouds, fog, mist etc., which allows light through.
“I have but one rift in the darkness, that is that I have injured no one save myself by my folly, and that the extent of that folly you will never learn.”
- A shallow place in a stream; a ford.
verb
- past participle of rive
“The mightie trunck halfe rent, with ragged rift Doth roll adowne the rocks, and fall with fearefull drift.”
“Whether these men are alive or not, the fragile meeting ground I shared with them has been rift apart by a microscopic menace they didn't tell us about in high school biology.”