Coastal Word of the Day
Thursday, March 17, 2011 at 2:13PM A section of Highway 1 washed out in a landslide yesterday and in today’s Monterey Herald, this description: “The asphalt nearby looked new and no seeping water was seen. Fresh looking rip-rap was spotted mixed with soil that fell from under the roadway.”
Rip-rap! I scurried to my dictionary shelf. I won’t name names, but it took three searches to come up with a dictionary that defined rip-rap. From Webster’s Third International Dictionary, the enormous book that was my Iowa going away present from Kate:
Rip-rap: n 1: a foundation or sustaining wall of stones thrown together without order (as in deep water, on a soft bottom, or on an embankment slope to prevent erosion) 2: stone used for riprap.
In verb form: riprap and riprapping.
Other rip words: rip-roaring, rip-roarious, ripsack, ripsaw, ripsawyer, ripsnorter, riptide, rip track, ripuarian, and yes, it’s in the dictionary: rip van winkle.
