noun
cirque
SURK/sɜːrk/
A bowl-shaped mountain hollow carved by a glacier.
A small lake lies in the cirque beneath the mountain's steep rocky headwall.
Etymology
Latin circus meant a ring and also named an arena. That enclosed, rounded shape provides the useful connection to a cirque’s bowl-shaped mountain hollow.
In context
The cirque being the bowl shaped basin is formed at the top of the glacial valley.
More examples
- The glacier carved a deep cirque.
- Snow persists in the shaded cirque.
- Hikers climb above a series of glacial cirques.
Forms
cirque · cirques
Similar words
- valley
- A valley is an elongated depression; a cirque is a bowl-shaped hollow associated with glacial erosion.