Crossword clues for piste
piste
Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Piste \Piste\, n. [F., fr. L. pisere, pinsere, pistum, to
pound.] (Min.)
The track or tread a horseman makes upon the ground he goes
over.
--Johnson.
Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
also pist, 1727, from French piste, from Latin pista (via) "beaten (track)," from pistus, past participle of pinsere "to pound, stamp" (see pestle).
Wiktionary
n. 1 (context skiing English) a downhill trail. 2 (context fencing English) the field of play of a fencing match. 3 (context archaic English) The track left by somebody riding a horse.
WordNet
n. a ski run densely packed with snow
Wikipedia
A piste is a marked ski run or path down a mountain for snow skiing, snowboarding, or other mountain sports.
This European term is French ("trail", "track") and synonymous with 'trail', 'slope', or 'groomed run' in North America. Pronunciation varies slightly in English, with British English using a long "e", (e.g. rhymes with "beast"), and American pronunciation using a short "i" (e.g. rhymes with "list").
Increasingly, North Americans employ its common European antonym, 'off piste', to describe backcountry skiing, especially when referring to skiing outside officially approved areas of a ski resort.
Individual trails on pistes are graded by difficulty using ski trail ratings.
Piste may refer to:
- Piste, a marked ski-run or path down a mountain
- Piste (fencing), the narrow strip along which the sport of fencing is played
- Piste (pétanque), the strip along which the sport of pétanque is played
- Piste or Pisti, a mountain in Peru
In modern fencing, the piste or strip is the playing area. Regulations require the piste to be 14 metres long and between 1.5 and 2 metres wide. The last two metres on each end are hash-marked to warn a fencer before he/she backs off the end of the strip, after which is a 1.5 to 2 metre runoff. The piste is also marked at the centre and at the "en garde" lines, located two metres either side of the center line.
Retreating off the end of the strip with both feet results in a touch awarded for the opponent. Going off the side of the strip with one or both feet halts the fencing action, and is penalized by allowing the opponent to advance one metre before being replaced on guard. If the offending fencer would then be replaced behind the rear limit of the strip because of this, a touch is awarded to the opponent. If play is halted for any reason other than stepping off the side of the piste a fencer may never be replaced on guard behind the rear line.
After each touch, fencers begin again at the en garde line, 4 metres apart, or if these lines are not available, roughly at a position where their blades can nearly touch when fully extended. If no touch is scored but play was halted, the fencers come en garde at the position they were stopped.
Most pistes at fencing tournaments are "grounded" to the scoring box, thus any hits that a fencer makes against the piste will not be registered as a touch.
Usage examples of "piste".
As she hurtled along the piste of her dreamscape she felt the crush of the main bulk pushing against her back, and as she struggled to keep her tenuous balance woke up, sweating but half-amused by the content of the dream.
Dean Street, a secretary with a nice belly button and commissioned a witty documentary about chalet girls on the piste or something equally blindingly obvious.
With the piste unobscured, it would have been easy, but the new snow made every descent look desirable.
He was having a go at a schuss, on a flatter part of the slope, and it had carried him over to the far side of the piste.
These corrugations ran from the rim's rough hills down into the basin, forcing the piste viaduct to alternate between great arching bridges and deep cuts, or tunnels.
These corrugations ran from the rim’s rough hills down into the basin, forcing the piste viaduct to alternate between great arching bridges and deep cuts, or tunnels.
So drillers followed dowsers, and pipeline crews went out after the drillers, and tent teams were out all around the piste, and up the Reull canyon above Har-makhis, helping the Sufis deal with a badly fretted canyon wall.
Red ecoteurs objected to this plan, and blew up the piste running down the peninsula.
But it lay at the intersection of the equatorial piste and the Tharsis piste running north and south, the last place one could cross the equator between here and the chaoses, a full quarter of the planet away.
Oh there were a few low boulder hermitages on rim overlooks, and a piste had been built on the northeast lava flow that broke the escarpment ring surrounding the volcano, for easy access to the festival complex at Crater Zp.
Paralleling the train piste as it ascended the steep eastern slope of the volcano were two new roads and four thick pipelines, as well as an array of cables, a line of microwave towers, and a continuous litter of stations, loading tracks, warehouses, and dumps.
The towns on the east side were like oases, strung on the thread of an island-circling piste.
The other passengers complained at how bumpy and slow the ride was-apparently express trains now floated over the pistes at about six hundred kilometers per hour.
But while she was running through their channels she heard enough messages to realize that there were young Red radicals whom Ann would certainly condemn, or so she hoped-people who, with the revolt still in the balance, were busy blowing up platforms in Vastitas, slashing tents, breaking pistes, threatening to end their cooperation with the other rebels unless they were joined in their ecotage and all their demands were met, etc.
Trains were still coming in on all three pistes, from east south and west, and loading up and leaving soon thereafter.