Scaur

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A steep, bare rock face or precipitous cliff, especially one found on a hillside or along the coast in Scotland
2. Chiefly a Scottish term for a craggy outcrop or sheer cliff where rock is exposed on a slope
3. An archaic or regional word for a jagged, precipitous crag or rocky escarpment rising above the land

Etymology: A "scaur" is a Scottish and northern English form of "scar", the word for a steep, rocky cliff or a bare outcrop of rock, especially one on a hillside or along the coast. The spelling keeps the older shape that "scar" had in the north, where the word has long been used for the rugged, exposed faces of hills and sea-cliffs. The same root gives "scar" in its more familiar sense of a rocky ledge, and the variant survives mainly in regional speech and in place names and writing that wants to evoke the Scottish landscape.

Synonyms: cliff, crag, scar