Definitions

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

  • noun A series of related rock formations.
  • noun An area having a preponderance of a particular rock or rock groups.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun See terrain.

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

  • noun (Geol.) A group of rocks having a common age or origin; -- nearly equivalent to formation, but used somewhat less comprehensively.
  • noun (Geog.) A region or limited area considered with reference to some special feature.

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

  • noun geology A block of the Earth's crust that differs from the surrounding material, and is separated from it by faults.

Etymologies

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

[Alteration of terrain.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Variant form of terrain.

Support

Help support Wordnik (and make this page ad-free) by adopting the word terrane.

Examples

  • Eastwards, a Permian terrane of greywacke sandstone becomes progressively more highly metamorphosed to become schist which forms the Southern Alps contained within Mount Aspiring National Park.

    Te Wahipounamu (South-West New Zealand World Heritage Area), New Zealand 2008

  • Birds of paradise, vicariance biogeography and terrane tectonics in New Guinea.

    Archive 2006-03-01 Darren Naish 2006

  • Rural Mexico has a lot in common with many other countries I have traveled in to climb mountains - rugged terrane, wide open spaces, dusty roads and poverty.

    Climbing@alanarnette.com: January 2008 Archives 2008

  • Birds of paradise (Paradisaeidae) and bowerbirds (Ptilonorhynchidae): regional levels of biodiversity and terrane tectonics in New Guinea.

    Archive 2006-03-01 Darren Naish 2006

  • Pham cycled the lock and pushed off, into the wormheads 'terrane.

    A Fire Upon the Deep Vinge, Vernor 1992

  • Pham was never sure why Rihndell had the Skroderiders pass through the wormheads 'terrane; maybe, if the creatures were the ultimate trellis users, they wanted a look at the sellers.

    A Fire Upon the Deep Vinge, Vernor 1992

  • As long as she kept her eyes on the darkening ground, Ravna could almost imagine this was someplace in her home terrane on Sjandra Kei.

    A Fire Upon the Deep Vinge, Vernor 1992

  • He ducked quickly around an aquarium as Ravna said, "The terrane just complained to your suit: 'You are in violation of dress-code' is how the translation comes out."

    A Fire Upon the Deep Vinge, Vernor 1992

  • This secondary harbor was not really part of the tusk-leg race's terrane.

    A Fire Upon the Deep Vinge, Vernor 1992

  • The move was even plausible, for it happened that there was a Skroderider terrane in the Harmonious Repose system -- and currently it was just a few hundred kilometers from Rihndell's second harbor.

    A Fire Upon the Deep Vinge, Vernor 1992

Comments

Log in or sign up to get involved in the conversation. It's quick and easy.

  • "You are on the low side of the learning curve and don't even know terrain from terrane."
    John McPhee, in <em>Elicitation</em>, p 50 of the April 7, 2014, issue of the New Yorker

    April 13, 2014