A vocabulary of landscape — a landscape of words
1133 entries
alcove
A recessed, arched opening in a cliff face, carved by water seeping through porous sandstone and undermining a harder caprock layer above. Alcoves in canyon country can be enormous — roofed chambers large enough to hold entire Ancestral Puebloan villages, as at Mesa Verde and Canyon de Chelly. The word applies to architecture too, but the geological version came first.
Etymology
Spanish alcoba, from Arabic al-qubba, the vault or dome. A vaulted recess — the shape is the same whether carved by water or by hands.