Crossword clues for cordillera
cordillera
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Cordillera \Cor*dil"ler*a\ (k[^o]r*d[i^]l"l[~e]r*[.a]; Sp. k[^o]r`d[-e]*ly[asl]"r[.a]), n. [Sp., fr. OSp. cordilla, cordiella, dim. of cuerda a rope, string. See Cord.] (Geol.) A mountain ridge or chain.
Note: Cordillera is sometimes applied, in geology, to the system of mountain chains near the border of a continent; thus, the western cordillera of North America in the United States includes the Rocky Mountains, Sierra Nevada, Coast and Cascade ranges.
Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
1704, from Spanish, "mountain chain," from cordilla, in Old Spanish "string, rope," diminutive of cuerda, from Latin chorda "cord, rope" (see cord).
Wiktionary
n. 1 An extensive, continent-wide chain of mountains, especially one in the Americas. 2 A region of Canada, similar to the Appalachian, but with mostly new mountain ranges.
Wikipedia
A cordillera is an extensive chain of mountains or mountain ranges. The term is a borrowing from Spanish, in which it has the same meaning. The Spanish word originates from cordilla, a diminutive of cuerda, or "rope". It is most commonly used in the field of physical geography.
The term is particularly applied to the various ranges of the Andes of South America, and less frequently to other mountain ranges in the "ridge" which rims the Pacific Ocean. In Colombia and Venezuela the cordilleras are named according to their position: Cordillera Occidental, Central, and Oriental. Various local names identify the cordilleras in Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, Chile, and Argentina.
Mountain ranges of this type have a complex structure, usually the result of folding and faulting accompanied by volcanic activity. In South America the ranges include numerous volcanic peaks. (Though not itself a volcano, Argentina's Mt. Aconcagua, at 22,834 feet (6,960 metres) high, is the highest point in the Western Hemisphere.) A number of the volcanoes have been active in historic times. Aside from the volcanic peaks, the crests include many narrow ridges, some of which reach into the zone of permanent snow. Between the ranges there are numerous inhabited valleys, basins, and low plateaux with a wide range of elevations.
Usage examples of "cordillera".
I borrowed your airboat to go up the Cordilleras, lost power, and had to set her down in the woods.
The historians mention it as one of the earthquakes which caused the greatest convulsions in northern Luzon, especially in Ilocos Norte and Cagayan, but above all in the region of the Central Central Cordillera, Lepanto, and Bontoc.
Destructive earthquake, accompanied by great landslides in the mountains and eruptions of water and mud in the region of northern Luzon which comprises the Provinces of the Ilocos, of Cagayan, and the Cordillera Central.
Slight damage was done in several towns of Ilocos Norte and Cagayan, situated near the Central Cordillera.
Let us make a stride across the narrow strip of Chili, and over the Cordilleras of the Andes, and get into the heart of the Pampas.
He had taken thirty days to cross Chili, the Cordilleras, the Pampas, and the Argentine plains, giving the DUNCAN ample time to double Cape Horn, and arrive on the opposite side.
Thus British Columbia comprises practically the entire width of what has been termed the Cordillera or Cordilleran belt of North America, between the parallels of latitude above indicated.
Some of the most important metalliferous deposits of the Cordilleras are found in this group of hot-water caverns.
At five in the evening they stopped in a gorge of no great depth, some miles above the little town of Loja, and encamped for the night at the foot of the Sierras, the first steppes of the great Cordilleras.
Slowly and painfully they had worked their way northward again, along the eastern foot of the inland Cordillera, and now they were bivouacking, as it seems, upon one of the many feeders of the Meta, which flow down from the Suma Paz into the forest-covered plains.
We shall go through the capital of Araucania, and cut the Cordilleras by the pass of Antuco, leaving the volcano on the south, and gliding gently down the mountain sides, past the Neuquem and the Rio Colorado on to the Pampas, till we reach the Sierra Tapalquen, from whence we shall see the frontier of the province of Buenos Ayres.
So on the Silla of Caraccas the illustrious Humboldt long ago found species belonging to genera characteristic of the Cordillera.
There is as much to be done, and sought, and investigated, and discovered in the Cordilleras as in the mountains of Thibet.
He made a livelihood by letting out mules to travelers, and leading them over the difficult passes of the Cordilleras, after which he gave them in charge of a BAQUEANO, or Argentine guide, to whom the route through the Pampas was perfectly familiar.
They were not far now from the highest peak of the Cordilleras, but there was not the slightest trace of any beaten path.