Brae, Brink, Cliff, Crag: Origins, Forms, Histories of Words Meaning Hill or Slope

The natural features of a region are called its topography. The word comes from Greek topos ("place").

English speakers have a long history of inventing (or borrowing from other languages) all sorts of different names for related topographical features.

Hill and slopes, for example, are known by a wide range of words in English, each with its own unique story to tell.

In the alphabetically arranged presentation of such terms in the current series, the next words are these: brae, breck, brink, brow, cam, cliff, and crag. Here is an overview of their origins, forms, and histories. The dates of first appearance of the forms and meanings are from the Oxford English Dictionary.

Brae
Modern English brae (16th century) comes from Middle English bra (14th century), from Old Norse bra ("eyelid"), which is akin to Old English braew ("eyebrow"). Sometime between the Old English and Middle English periods, the sense of the word passed from "eyebrow" to "brow of a hill."

Originally the word was in general English use. Today, however, it is chiefly Scottish.

Brae's principal meanings are a steep bank along a river (1330) and, more generally, any steep slope or hillside (1425).

Breck
Breck probably comes from Old Norse brekka ("slope of a hill").

The word is a British term meaning a stretch of rough, undulating ground, like a series of little hills (1837), or an enclosed portion of such land (1787).

Brink
Brink entered Middle English with its current spelling in the 13th century. It is of Scandinavian origin and is akin to Old Norse brekka ("slope of a hill").

Brink's principal meanings are an edge, expecially one at the top of a steep place, and a bank, especially one at the edge of a river (both senses, 13th century).

Brow
Modern English brow comes from Middle English brow (15th century), from Old English bru (before 1100), which is akin to Old Norse brun ("eyebrow").

From the Old English sense of eyebrow, the word developed a Middle and Modern English extended meaning: the projecting part or margin of a cliff or hill (c. 1435).

Cam
Cam comes from Scottish kame, from Old Norse kambr ("comb, crest, serrated ridge, crest or ridge of a hill"). This word is related in its ultimate origin to comb, which, in Old English, is camb.

In northern England dialect, a cam is a ridge or a long narrow earthen mound (1788).

Cliff
Modern English cliff goes back through Middle English clif to Old English clif (before 1100).

The two principal meanings of cliff are a steep face of rock, especially at a great height (854), and a steep sloping ground, as at a hill (before 1200).

A British dialectal variant of cliff is cleve (14th century), which had many different early spellings, such as cleof (13th century). Cleve has the same two basic meanings as cliff: a steep face of rock and a steep sloping ground (both 13th century).

Cleve is used in many local place-names in England (from where they were carried to the United States), such as Cleveland.

Crag
Crag entered Middle English in the 13th century with its present spelling. It is of Celtic origin, akin to Welsh craig ("rock").

Crag means a steep rugged rock or cliff (before 1300) or a detached or projecting rough piece of rock (c. 1400).
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Encyclopaedia Britannica Ready Reference 2004. CD-ROM. Encyclopaedia Britannica, 2004.

Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary. 11th ed. Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster, 2006.

Merriam-Webster's Geographical Dictionary. 3rd ed. Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster, 2007.

The Oxford English Dictionary. 2nd ed. Oxford, England: Clarendon Press, 1989.