Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun Loose rock debris covering a slope.
  • noun A slope of loose rock debris at the base of a steep incline or cliff.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun A pile of debris at the base of a cliff; a talus.
  • noun A riddle or coarse sieve.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun Prov. Eng. A pebble; a stone; also, a heap of stones or rocky débris.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun A harsh high-pitched sound as of a hawk.
  • verb To make a high-pitched sound like that of a hawk.
  • noun uncountable Loose stony debris on a slope.
  • noun A slope of such material at the base of a cliff, etc.
  • verb To flatten or level concrete, while still wet, and clear protruding stones and gravel from the surface.
  • verb To traverse scree.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun a sloping mass of loose rocks at the base of a cliff

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Probably ultimately from Old Norse skridha, landslide, from skrīdha, to slide.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

(onomatopoeia)

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Old Norse skriða ("landslip"). Also see screed.

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Examples

  • "Our primary concern is people getting onto snowfields with running shoes on and these snowfields have large runouts down into what we call scree slopes or boulder fields."

    canada.com Top Stories 2010

  • But we learned to 'scree' - which is kind of like skiing down a scree slope.

    Backpacking Light Magazine 2009

  • Below, a precipitous slope of small stones that the dalesmen call a scree ran down to a hollow strewn with broken rocks, and across this he could distinguish the blurred flat top of another height.

    The Girl from Keller's Harold Bindloss 1905

  • "A 'richt," said Robert, as he looked at the narrow platform, with its weak, inadequate railing, which could hardly prevent anyone from falling down on to the wagon track, some fifteen or twenty feet below on one side, or on to the moving "scree" on the other.

    The Underworld The Story of Robert Sinclair, Miner James C. Welsh

  • While he stared, first at a hole in the ceiling, then at the "scree" which had broken through it and lay spread, fan-shaped, on the solid floor at his feet, he heard a footstep, and Mrs Penhaligon's voice in the passage without.

    Nicky-Nan, Reservist Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch 1903

  • The Agricultural Conservation team use it extensively in their everyday work, for example, consultations on bracken spraying to identify areas of exclusion such as scree and water courses.

    Releases feed from RealWire 2010

  • The Agricultural Conservation team use it extensively in their everyday work, for example, consultations on bracken spraying to identify areas of exclusion such as scree and water courses.

    Releases feed from RealWire 2010

  • The Agricultural Conservation team use it extensively in their everyday work, for example, consultations on bracken spraying to identify areas of exclusion such as scree and water courses.

    GISuser - GIS and Geospatial Technology News 2010

  • The Agricultural Conservation team use it extensively in their everyday work, for example, consultations on bracken spraying to identify areas of exclusion such as scree and water courses.

    Releases feed from RealWire 2010

  • Our head-torches lit the way as we slowly scrambled up the scree on all fours, the milky way a smudge in the sky easily discernible above the craggy peaks.

    Ben Colclough: Mount Kenya: 5,000 m, Mice, Buffalo and Evil Eyes Ben Colclough 2011

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