Etymology Apheretic form of escarp. Doublet of escarp.
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The steep artificial slope below a fort's parapet.
—I would throw out the earth upon this hand towards the town for the scarp,—and on that hand towards the campaign for the counterscarp.—Very right, Trim, quoth my uncle Toby:—And when I had sloped them to your mind,——an’ please your Honour, I would face the glacis, as the finest fortifications are done in Flanders, with sods,——and as your Honour knows they should be,—and I would make the walls and parapets with sods too.1659, Laurence Sterne, chapter XXX, in The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman:
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Geography, Geology, Natural sciences A cliff at the edge of a plateau or ridge caused by erosion or faulting; the steeper side of an escarpment.
2014, Paul Salopek, Blessed. Cursed. Claimed., National Geographic (December 2014)https://web.archive.org/web/20150212214621/http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2014/12/pilgrim-roads/salopek-text Sweating under the sun, we scale the barren eastern scarp of the Great Rift Valley (Area B), edging carefully around controversial, razor-wired Israeli settlements (Area C).
Etymology Apheretic form of escarp. Doublet of escarp.
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Geography, Natural sciences to cut, scrape, erode, or otherwise make into a scarp or escarpment
to scarp the face of a ditch or a rock
From scarped cliff and quarried stone1850, [Alfred, Lord Tennyson], “(please specify |part=Prologue or Epilogue, or |canto=I to CXXIX)”, in In Memoriam, London: Edward Moxon, […], →OCLC:
1 more example
For thou, O Spring! canst renovate / All that high God did first create. / […] / Sweep ruins from the scarped mountain, / Cleanse the torrent at the fountain, […]1867, Ralph Waldo Emerson, “May-Day”, in May-Day and Other Pieces, Boston, Mass.: Ticknor and Fields, →OCLC, page 38: