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abseil

UK/ˈæb.seɪl/US/ˈæb.seɪl/
verbC1Very rare — outside the 30,000 commonest English words, so you will meet it in writing rather than in speechneutral

Other forms: abseiling, abseiled, abseils

To abseil is to come down a rock face on a rope. Abseil off the top.

It is the most dangerous part of most climbs, since everything depends on one anchor. To abseil is called rappelling in America, and the technique is identical.

Bertrand Semelet · CC BY-SA 2.0 fr

Definitions of abseil

  1. 1verbabseilTo come down a rock face on a rope.C1

    “They had to abseil the last forty metres in the dark.”

abseil is a descending.

Also accepted in games: rappel

Where it comes from

German abseilen is ab, down, plus Seil, a rope.

  1. German

    abseilen

  2. English, today

    abseil

Built from

  • ab · German — down
  • Seil · German — rope

From German abseilen, from ab (“down”) + Seil (“rope”).

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practised in Camping & Outdoors

Practise this word

abseil in the wild

  • Soldiers carried a 30-metre rope to enable them to abseil down from the forest canopy.

    Treejumping

  • The Maletsunyane Falls first Guinness Record was for the "World's longest commercially operated abseil", managed by Semonkong Lodge, with a height of 204 m.

    Maletsunyane Falls

  • Rappel racks, also known as abseil racks, are a type of descender.

    Rappel rack

From Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. These sentences were written by other people about their own subjects; they are here to show the word at work, not as anybody’s opinion.