Great Rift Valley
- proper noun
- Specialized
:
Gran Valle del Rift
- Tourists flock to the Great Rift Valley to witness its dramatic landscapes and wildlife.
- Kenya's Great Rift Valley
- Great Rift Valley in Africa
Examples
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My son, some say the Great Rift Valley is a beautiful scar on the face of Africa.
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Which is surely why human civilization began in the Great Rift Valley of East Africa?
Blog text (13) -
That's the Great Rift Valley.
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Salt lakes are widely distributed throughout the drier parts of Africa, but the best-studied are located in East Africa, particularly in the Great Rift Valley.
Academic text (1996) -
The Great Rift Valley is known for its unique geological features and biodiversity.
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Many scientists study the tectonic activity in the Great Rift Valley to understand plate movements.
Synonyms
4
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A long deep valley with steep sides that forms when part of the earth sinks between cracks
Surface Forms
Morphology
The name is compositional: 'great' (large) + 'rift' (a gap/crack) + 'valley' (a low area) straightforwardly yields the idea of a large valley formed by a rift. Although it names a specific geological feature with technical details, the basic meaning is directly derivable from the constituents and is cross-linguistically transparent.
Etymology
Great Rift Valley comes from the strong image of a long rift, a 'deep crack' in the land that forms a line of low valleys. That's why it now means the long area where the ground has pulled apart and dropped down, running from Jordan through eastern Africa to Mozambique.