A vocabulary of landscape — a landscape of words
975 entries
exposure
The degree to which a site is open to weather — wind, sun, precipitation, temperature extremes. A south-facing slope has different exposure than a north-facing one. A ridge has more exposure than a hollow. In mountaineering, exposure also means the consequence of a fall — a ledge with thousands of feet of air below it is “exposed” regardless of how wide it is.
Etymology
From Latin exponere (“to put out, set forth,” from ex- “out” + ponere “to place”), via French exposer. The root sense — put out in the open, unshielded — carries directly into both the climatic and the mountaineering meanings.