edge of the cliff
- noun
- Horrified, Jan looked over the edge of the cliff, but in the darkness he could see nothing.
- standing at the edge of the cliff
- looking over the edge of the cliff
- run to the edge of the cliff
I am standing on the edge of the Cliff the entire night.
- I am standing on the edge of the Cliff the entire night.
- So can you still amend the case that we will continue dancing along and always stop just short of the edge of the Cliff?
Examples
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The path curves, dips, and then dives over the edge of the cliff.
Fiction book (1995) -
Remember the villa at the edge of the cliff?
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I was trying to turn my car near the edge of the cliff.
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We are standing on the edge of the cliff, ready to jump.
Blog text (25) -
I walked all the way out to the edge of the cliff without seeing anything.
Fiction book (1999) -
Sure enough, there were two tiny figures walking along the edge of the cliff...
Fiction book (1990) -
I walked over to the edge of the cliff, took a deep breath, and let it out.
Fiction book (2001) -
The sun has set as Sam stands at the edge of the cliff trying to garner the courage to jump.
Fiction book (2001) -
The pickup bursts through a retaining fence and rockets over the edge of the cliff.
Fiction book (1993) -
Daine stepped closer to the edge of the cliff, looking out over the waves.
Synonyms
Outer part of an object that forms a border, often sharp
A narrow flat surface that sticks out from a wall or cliff
A steep high face of rock, like a cliff
A very steep cliff with a sudden drop
The very edge of a steep place like a cliff
A very steep edge of land or rock
Surface Forms
Morphology
The meaning is directly and transparently compositional: 'edge' (outer boundary) combined with 'cliff' (steep rock face) linked by the preposition phrase 'of the' yields the outermost part of a cliff. This 'edge of X' construction is a standard, cross-linguistic part-whole/location pattern that a B1 learner who knows the constituents will readily understand.
Etymology
Edge of the cliff comes from the literal image of standing on the thin edge of a high cliff, where one wrong step leads to a sudden drop. So it means 'the outermost part or boundary of a rock face before a fall'.