A Mountain of Words

Anyone striving to attain a peak and pinnacle of vocabulary prowess has a need for this list of words relating to mountains. Traverse every valley and crevasse, climb to the ascent, and enjoy the breath-taking view from the summit of this list!
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Full list of words from this list:

words only definitions & notes
  1. altitude
    elevation above sea level or above the earth's surface
    As an example, imagine you are driving east on a hill; for every mile east you drive, you gain half a mile in altitude. Zero: The Biography of a Dangerous Idea
  2. ascent
    a movement upward
    Their mountaineering experience varied from none at all to very slight—certainly none of them had the kind of experience which would make an ascent of Everest a reasonable goal. Into Thin Air
  3. avalanche
    a slide of large masses of snow, ice and mud down a mountain
    As though a single dragonfly could alight on it and trigger an avalanche that will bury them for good. All the Light We Cannot See
  4. cliff
    a steep high face of rock
    A great ring-wall of stone, like towering cliffs, stood out from the shelter of the mountain-side, from which it ran and then returned again. The Two Towers
  5. crag
    a steep rugged rock or cliff
    Though not as mighty as Mount Dragon at the north of Annuvin, Dark Gate was treacherous, with its sharp crags and hidden drops. The Black Cauldron
  6. crevasse
    a deep fissure
    A long snowfield lay between them and the next gap, and on crossing it they discovered a crevasse so deep that “two battleships could have been hidden in it,” as Worsley said. Shipwreck at the Bottom of the World
  7. descent
    a movement downward
    I walked for a little over an hour until I came to a sudden, absurdly steep descent to Lehigh Gap—almost a thousand feet straight down. A Walk in the Woods
  8. elevation
    a raised geological formation
    The night had become chilly, almost cold enough to lay down a frost, he thought; it must be freezing at the higher elevations. The Milagro Beanfield War
  9. erosion
    the process of wearing or grinding something down
    The loss of tree cover would have caused large-scale erosion and floods. 1491
  10. glacier
    a slowly moving mass of ice
    During the Ice Ages, so much of the oceans’ water was locked up in glaciers that worldwide sea levels dropped hundreds of feet below their present stand. Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies
  11. peak
    the top or extreme point of something
    The final thing I remember seeing of Iwo Jima was the American flag still waving from the peak of Mount Suribachi as we sailed away. Code Talker: A Novel About the Navajo Marines of World War Two
  12. pinnacle
    a lofty peak
    To the right there were rocky pinnacles, one or two of them with snow clinging to the ledges. The Horse and His Boy
  13. plateau
    a relatively flat raised area of land
    The city of Kiev stretched in front of her, climbing up a gradual slope to a plateau that overlooked the lower city and the river beyond. Anya and the Nightingale
  14. range
    a series of hills or mountains
    In so doing, they found an even bigger surprise: the mightiest and most extensive mountain range on Earth was–mostly–underwater. A Short History of Nearly Everything
  15. ridge
    a long narrow natural elevation or striation
    There had been a grass fire not long before, so all the vegetation of the more open ridges and peaks had burned away. My Life with the Chimpanzees
  16. saddle
    a pass or ridge that slopes gently between two peaks
    When they came to a high saddle between two spires of rock, Mya dismounted. A Game of Thrones
  17. slope
    an elevated geological formation
    The river was six hundred feet below, down steep slopes and twisty passages, she explained, and the last part required climbing down a rope. A Dance with Dragons
  18. summit
    the top or extreme point of something
    Up ahead, in a clear area near the summit of the hill, she saw the source of the thin smoke—a waist-high cylinder of stone with a wooden windlass and a dangling bucket. Fablehaven
  19. tundra
    a vast treeless plain where subsoil is permanently frozen
    The dips and heaves of the tundra spread out all around her and still looked the same in every direction. Julie of the Wolves
  20. valley
    a long depression in the surface of the land
    To the north we could look across a valley and see a forest of chestnut trees and behind it another mountain on this side of the river. A Farewell To Arms
Created on Mon Nov 27 12:01:30 EST 2023 (updated Wed Nov 29 12:57:17 EST 2023)

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