scarp

plural scarps

1. The steep artificial slope below a fort's parapet.

   1 more example

   —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

2. geographyA cliff at the edge of a plateau or ridge caused by erosion or faulting; the steeper side of an escarpment.

   1 more example

   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).

3. obsoletegovernmentObsolete spelling of scarpe, scrape.

   He beareth Argent, a Scarp, Azure.

   1724, John Guillim, A Display of Heraldry, page 38

   1 more example

   [...] as in the seventh, which is Argent a Scarp Azure.

   1673, Matthew Carter, Honor Redivivus: Or, The Analysis of Honor and Armory, page 211

present singular third person scarps · participle present scarping · participle past scarped · past scarped

1. transitiveearth sciencegeographyto cut, scrape, erode, or otherwise make into a scarp or escarpment

   to scarp the face of a ditch or a rock

   2 more examples

   From scarped cliff and quarried stone

   1850, [Alfred, Lord Tennyson], “(please specify |part=Prologue or Epilogue, or |canto=I to CXXIX)”, in In Memoriam, London: Edward Moxon, […], →OCLC

   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