DCHP-1 Online

bluff

• 1 † n. a clifflike bank, often wooded, at the edge of a river or lake.

  • 1744  When they got beyond the N.W. Bluff . . . the Current or Fresh suddenly turned against them. . . .
  • 1842  Opposite Keswick Bluff, there is a large body of intervale on the right bank of the river. . . .
  • 1963  Here, high on a bluff overlooking Georgian Bay, were found the bones of over 700 Hurons

• 2 n. a low, moundlike hill.

  • 1774  (1954)  Canoe Hummock or Bluff.
  • 1850  However, we advanced over the crest of the bluffs with rifles ready cocked, expecting every instant to hear the angry growl of bears.

• 3a n. See 1957 quote.

  See also: bunch ((n.)) (def. 2)  droke  hummock (def. 1)  island  poplar bluff  wood island  

  • 1792  (1934)  All the side of the lake passed has a stony shore and mostly covered with small asps with a few bluffs of pine.
  • 1821  (1824)  . . . the country we passed presented some beautiful points and bluffs of wood.
  • 1862  [We camped] at a stagnant pool in the shelter of a bluff of poplar.
  • 1957  On the prairies you don't have to be much more than a babe in arms to know that a bluff is a grove of trees and to understand that the village names of Oak Bluff in Manitoba and Poplar Bluff in Saskatchewan prove it beyond a doubt.
  • 1959  The cabin still stood in the bluff above the pass.

• 3b n. See quote.

  • 1960  The plains had been stripped so badly that few deer roamed in the tiny clumps of brush and bluff.