Rift

How to spell rift

4 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce rift

What does rift mean?

1. nounA crack, split, or wide opening, especially in rock or the ground.
2. nounA serious break in friendly relations between people or groups.

Rift in a sentence

• A deep rift opened across the glacier after the warm summer.

• The inheritance dispute caused a lasting rift between the two brothers.

• The geologists studied the volcanic rift along the valley floor.

• A growing rift within the party split it into rival factions.

Where does rift come from?

Language of origin: Old Norse

Rift came into Middle English around the 1300s from a Scandinavian source, closely related to the Old Norse verb rifa, which meant 'to tear apart' or 'to rip'. The same root survives in modern Danish and Norwegian rift, meaning a cleft or a tear, and it is a near cousin of the English verb 'rive', 'to split forcibly'. The literal early sense was a physical break or crack, and from there geologists later borrowed it for great fractures in the earth's crust, as in a rift valley. By the nineteenth century the word had also stretched into a figurative meaning, a serious breach in a friendship or alliance. Because the spelling is short and entirely regular, with the single consonants matching the sounds, it tends to cause adults little trouble.

How the word is built

• rift (a single Scandinavian root meaning a tear or cleft; no prefix or suffix)