rift valley
4
7.0
- noun
- /rɪft ˈvæli/
- Specialized
:
valle del Rift
- Dire Dawa is located on the southern edge of the Rift Valley at the foot of the Harar Mountains.
- Rift Valley of Kenya
- Rift Valley clashes
- edge of the Rift Valley
Examples
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Elburgon is a quiet village town located in Kenya's Rift Valley, a province that has traditionally produced maize, wheat, and pyrethrum.
Blog text (9) -
Which is surely why human civilization began in the Great Rift Valley of East Africa?
Blog text (13) -
My son, some say the Great Rift Valley is a beautiful scar on the face of Africa.
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The eastern border of the plateau forms the wall of the Great Rift Valley.
Blog text (14) -
Lake Elmenteita in Kenya's central rift valley serves as a case in point.
Academic text (1996) -
Passing by the shadows of Mount Kenya, the road descends into the Rift Valley: the cradle of civilization.
Academic text (2009) -
Within the Rift Valley itself, almost all the fossils are of hominids who died on lakesides, riversides, or wetlands.
Academic text (1995) -
Flanked by margins as high as 7,000 feet above its floor, the rift valley created by the Dead Sea fault is one of the deepest and most abrupt depressions on Earth.
Academic text (2003) -
The park is situated outside Nakuru Township in Kenya, which is part of the Great Rift Valley with its alkaline and fresh water lakes, within easy reach of Nairobi, the capital of Kenya.
Academic text (2006) -
The Rift Valley stretches across several countries and is characterized by its steep cliffs and deep terrain.
Synonyms
∞
1.0
A low area of land between hills or mountains often with a river running through it
A long narrow valley that forms when land drops between two cracks in the earth
How Deep
Surface Forms
Morphology
The meaning is directly derivable from combining 'rift' (a narrow gap or crack) with 'valley' (a low area): it denotes a valley characterized by a rift. This modifier+head compound is a straightforward compositional pattern common across languages and would be clear to a B1 learner who knows both constituents.
Etymology
Rift valley comes from a simple image of land being pulled apart. A long block of land drops down between two cracks, so rift means a 'split' and valley means a 'low area', which explains why the term describes a long, deep valley with steep sides.