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rift

UK/ɹɪft/US/ɹɪft/
nounC2Common in everyday speech and writing · #8,107 of 15,258leans written

Other forms: rifts

A rift is a crack, or a serious break between friends. A rift in the party, heal the rift, a rift valley.

In geology a rift is where the crust is pulling apart, and the East African Rift is slowly splitting a continent. The human sense is the commoner: a rift between people is deeper than a quarrel and takes time rather than an apology to heal.

Definitions of rift

  1. 1nounriftA crack, or a serious break between friends.C2

    “A bitter argument over their father's will caused a rift between the two brothers.”

rift is a break.

Remember it

RIFT → the two sides DRIFT apart

A long crack opening in the ground, with the two of them standing on opposite sides of it, drifting further apart every year.

hooks ontodrift

Where it comes from

Middle English rift, from a Scandinavian word meaning a breach, related to rive, to tear.

  1. Middle English

    rift

  2. English, today

    rift

From Middle English rift, of gmq origin; akin to Danish rift, Norwegian Bokmål rift (“breach”), Old Norse rífa (“to tear”). More at rive.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practise this word

rift in the wild

  • The rift extends from central Colorado in the north to the state of Chihuahua, Mexico, in the south.

    Rio Grande rift

  • The rift can be observed on location at Rio Grande National Forest, White Sands National Park, Santa Fe National Forest, and Cibola National Forest, among other locations.

    Rio Grande rift

  • Where rifts remain above sea level they form a rift valley, which may be filled by water forming a rift lake.

    Rift

  • The axis of the rift area may contain volcanic rocks, and active volcanism is a part of many, but not all, active rift systems.

    Rift

  • The lake's north shore in Ontario and Minnesota defines the northern arc of the rift.

    Midcontinent Rift System

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.