cluse

plural cluses

1. A defile or narrow gorge, especially one that cuts transversely through the rock of an otherwise continuous ridge.

   […] cut by the wadis of the Atlas which gave birth to very steep cluses (Lechhab 1991).

   2024, Kholoud Kahime, Mohamed El Yamani, Stéphane Pouffary, Climate Change Effects and Sustainability Needs, page 83

   3 more examples

   [...] others are bounded by the steep walls of the cluses, these being the most picturesque; others, again, occupy the combes referred to above.

   1876, Elisée Reclus, The Earth and Its Inhabitants: France and Switzerland, page 150

   Penck states that many a cluse in the Jura may have been formed by subterranean streams widening their channels until the covering broke down and their subterranean valleys became exposed[…]

   1892, Proceedings of the Boston Society of Natural History, page 402

   […] narrow cluses still exist. The distinctive nature of the geomorphic forms of the Jura is indicated by the fact that each such item is identified locally by a particular term.

   1953, O. D. von Engeln, Geomorphology: Systematic and Regional, page 324