landslip

English

Etymology

land +‎ slip

Noun

landslip (plural landslips)

1. The sliding of a mass of land down a slope or cliff; a landslide
   • 1808, William Bernard Cooke, A New Picture of the Isle of Wight, London: Vernor, Hood & Sharpe, “Natural History,” p. 39,^[1]

     This landslip appears to have been occasioned by the freezing of the springs in the chasms of the hill; the expansive force of the ice causing a separation at the base of the cliff beneath the hill, the ground began to move forward, and the lands of the farm, being pressed on by the descending mass, were torn from their original foundations.

   • 1842, Alfred, Lord Tennyson, “Amphion” in Poems, London: Moxon, Volume 2, p. 167,^[2]

     And wasn’t it a sight to see,

     When, ere his song was ended,

     Like some great landslip, tree by tree,

     The country-side descended;

   • 1871, Charles Kingsley, At Last: A Christmas in the West Indies, New York: Harper & Bros., Chapter 2, p. 41,^[3]

     Though a cliff, or sheet of bare rock, is hardly visible among the glens, yet here and there a bright brown patch tells of a recent landslip […]

   • 1901, H. G. Wells, The First Men in the Moon, Chapter 7,^[4]

     Then some huge landslip in the thawing air had caught us, and spluttering expostulation, we began to roll down a slope, rolling faster and faster, leaping crevasses and rebounding from banks, faster and faster, westward into the white-hot boiling tumult of the lunar day.

   • 2019 October, Ian Walmsley, “Cleaning up”, in Modern Railways, page 42:

     The embankments forming the lineside forest are also a cause for concern, as landslips can block the line for days or even weeks.

Translations

A mass of land that has moved downslope

• Italian: smottamento (it) m
• (deprecated template usage) {{trans-mid}}
• Maori: horo, horowhenua