arête

See also: arete, areté, and aretê

English

Alternative forms

• arete

Etymology

Borrowed from French arête, from Latin arista. Doublet of arista.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /əˈɹɛt/, /əˈɹeɪt/
• Rhymes: -ɛt, -eɪt

Noun

arête (plural arêtes)

1. (geology) A very thin ridge of rock.
   • 2004, Richard Fortey, The Earth, Folio Society, published 2011, page 88:

     In his old department in Zürich, they sit in glass cases: models to the life of the peaks he had studied, with the strata painted beautifully and accurately, passing over arête and valley alike.

Translations

a thin ridge of rock

• Finnish: harja (fi)
• French: arête (fr) f
• German: Grat (de) m
• Irish: airéit f
• Norwegian:

  Bokmål: egg (no) m or f

  Nynorsk: egg m or f

• Polish: grań (pl) f
• Portuguese: aresta (pt) f
• Russian: гре́бень (ru) (grébenʹ)
• Spanish: arista (es) f

Anagrams

• areet, eater, ratee, teare

French

Etymology

Inherited from Old French areste, from Latin arista.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /a.ʁɛt/

  • Audio (Paris); “une arête”:

    (file)

• (Eastern Quebec) IPA^(key): [a.ˈʁɛtʰ]
• (Western Quebec) IPA^(key): [a.ˈʁɛtʰ] or IPA^(key): [a.ˈʁɛɪ̯tʰ]

In Quebec French, "ê" is pronounced [ɛɪ̯] in closed syllables in most words. In Eastern Quebec, both arête and arrête are among the exemptions from this rule; in Western Quebec only arête is pronounced with /ɛ/, and only by some speakers.

Homophones: arêtes, arrête, arrêtes, arrêtent

Noun

arête f (plural arêtes)

1. (zoology) bone (of a fish), fishbone
2. edge (of an object); ridge, crest (of mountain)
3. (architecture) groin (of vault)
4. bridge of nose
5. (botany) beard (of rye, barley etc.); awn
6. (graph theory) edge

Further reading

• “arête”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.

Anagrams

• ratée