Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. A ski trail densely packed with snow.
- n. An unpaved trail or path, especially in mountainous terrain.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. See pist.
Wiktionary
- n. skiing a downhill trail.
- n. fencing the field of play of a fencing match.
- n. archaic The track left by somebody riding a horse.
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. (Min.) The track or tread a horseman makes upon the ground he goes over.
WordNet 3.0
- n. a flat rectangular area for fencing bouts
- n. a ski run densely packed with snow
Etymologies
- From French piste. (Wiktionary)
- French, from Italian pista, from obsolete pistare, to trample down, variant of pestare; see piston. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“As you would hope, though, going off piste is rewarded by treasure and money.”
“At the top of the piste is a sign which reads "tres difficile".”
Telegraph.co.uk - Telegraph online, Daily Telegraph and Sunday Telegraph
“But there's also direct access from the village to over 250km of piste, meaning parents can ski to their hearts 'content and still be back to meet the kids at lunchtime.”
“Skiers enjoy a 'piste' of the high life Winter holiday boost for Glasgow Airport”
“It's not my kind of piste but the good thing is that even if you make a mistake, you can still recover, knowing that nobody will have a perfect run", he added after posting his 15th World Cup win and capturing the lead in the super-G World Cup standings.”
“The prospect of Peter Alliss straying off piste is increasingly welcome in the post Ross-Brand sanitised BBC.”
The Guardian: Peter Alliss: the pork pie of golf commentators | Martin Kelner
“Just the prospect of Alliss straying off piste is increasingly welcome in the post Ross-Brand sanitised BBC.”
The Guardian: Peter Alliss: the pork pie of golf commentators | Martin Kelner
“Many of the Andorran slopes are treeless, but Grau Roig has some nice runs where you can go off-piste among sparse woods.”
The Huffington Post: Why Skiiing In Andorra Makes For A Great Vacation
“There was so little snow that off piste skiing, which is the only kind I enjoy, was simply not possible.”
The Huffington Post: Dorrit Moussaieff: From Iceland, Where the Ski Season Is Only Just Starting
“Off piste, the blue-flag beach at Llanrhystud is four miles away and there's a veritable web of local footpaths and cycle trails to explore.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘piste’.
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WWF WTF?
Ever play "Words With Friends" with someone and they throw down some strange, unlikely group of letters that makes even the most mild and squeaky clean tongued person say "whiskey tango foxtrot"? ...
oorie, sangar, merl, cwm, doum, weir, jura, invar, lawine, tapa, waw, shog and 376 more...
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SPOR - Olympic glossary
hurdle, tempo, consortium, caption, mutual understanding, jury, radio, javelin, extra time, boxing, Lander, European and 521 more...
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Words that sound dirty but aren't.
When you want to be pedantic AND childish.
titular, masticate, condiment, titmouse, penal, formication, social intercourse, assassination, cacophony, lucubrate, rectify, banal and 131 more...
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madmelanie's Words
monkey, folderol, snark, snarky, flibbertigibbet, faith, asshat, pirouette, avuncular, exegesis, memento mori, verisimilitude and 379 more...
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words of collect
A Heidegger Collection - a log of logues
leech, lectern, lection, lecture, legend, legible, legion, lesson, coil, collect, diligent, elect and 123 more...
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Favorite Five-Letter Words
Just what it sounds like. My favorites. Five letters.
ennui, barfy, samba, schwa, beefy, chunk, queef, spasm, skulk, bowel, elbow, fruit and 235 more...
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Grounded Words
an Eckhartian exercise of grinding
grind, grist, refrain, ground, grit, mitochondrion, groats, grout, gruel, great, gruesome, gravel and 162 more...
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learning
A list of words whose meanings I am learning, either because a) I don't know the meaning b) I know the meaning, but could stand to better appreciate certain inflections or secondary meanings or c) ...
louche, educe, loam, cob, sclerotic, palliate, axial, syndicalist, ecumenical, sally, fatuous, parvenu and 1381 more...
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hannah's Words
perpetuity, portmanteau, scintillate, elucidate, surreptitious, reticulate, cavilling, laudatory, milquetoast, inimitable, schadenfreude, ancillary and 212 more...
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Sportie: Combat
boxing, ring, punching bag, round, hook, uppercut, jab, corner, southpaw, wrestling, greco-roman, wrestler and 25 more...
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Flying Into Snow
Snow-related words.
I love snow. Send me as much as you can.snow, flake, flurry, sastruga, slush, powder, blizzard, snowman, whiteout, sleet, sneg, salju and 75 more...
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Almost Dirty Words
Words that seem nasty, but aren't. Don't like it? Well... you're full of cockles.
bagasse, nosegay, jaculate, titmouse, titular, niggardly, masticate, angina, philatelist, fallacious, Uranus, rectory and 69 more...
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Cold Steel
A list of fencing terms, by no means comprehensive.
epee, foil, sabre, buckler, shield, rapier, dagger, hilt, tang, fleche, sabreur, parry and 26 more...
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Bionomenclature
phloem, lithops, ericaceous, albido, tarn, bosque, mirage, skerry, weir, kingfisher, effluvia, potherb and 48 more...
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Daily
thaumaturgy, lagniappe, gabble, Cytherean, samizdat, lixiviate, quintal, Rabelaisian, prescind, duende, deglutition, mancinism and 69 more...
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epravencraft's list
cuckold, touchstone, primus, contrive, stultify, bibulous, felicity, vindicate, obtuse, schmaltz, nefarious, piste and 18 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for piste.
defenestration Sir Paul said he was fond of the track, which was inspired by experimental composers John Cage and Karlheinz Stockhausen: "I like it because it's The Beatles free, going off piste." Nov 17, 2008
fbharjo a ski trail with densely packed snow Sep 29, 2008
chained_bear In fencing, how you feel after you lose a bout. Ha. Ha.
No, seriously. In fencing, the specially marked-out playing area. Feb 6, 2007