Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2021 March 31

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March 31

Category-unconstrained English thesauruses for the stingy

As my bookshelves were full and thesauruses are on the web for the asking, I got rid of my old (authentic! Longman!) Roget. Silly me. What thesauruses I find online exclude other word categories ("parts of speech"). What mountain is to mountainous (and perhaps others) and riverbank is to riparian (ditto), valley is to ... uh ... I'm sure there's at least one adjective for the job, but I can't think of any. I don't have access to the OED right now; any suggestions for other websites? -- Hoary (talk) 07:51, 31 March 2021 (UTC)

I can't suggest any websites I'm afraid. A definition search in the OED comes up with nothing more exotic than "Valleyed: situated in a valley".--Shantavira|^{feed me} 08:13, 31 March 2021 (UTC)

Have you checked your local used-book store? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 11:19, 31 March 2021 (UTC)

No. Come to think of it, this may well have a copy; and if it does, then this will be cheap. -- Hoary (talk) 12:17, 31 March 2021 (UTC)

As luck would have it, I have my well-thumbed copy of Roget right here. You are quite right, those so-called thesauruses (thesauri) on the web are just lists of synonyms, whereas the beauty of Roget is that it groups words by concept. Think of it as the opposite of a dictionary: while a dictionary gives the meaning of a word, a thesaurus gives all the words associated with a meaning. As for valley, it's associated with the concept of "interval". Adjective forms given in my copy are: spaced, intervallic, gappy, gapped, split, cloven, cleft, cracked, rimous, rimose, disunited, dehiscent, gaping, open, sporadic, far between, latticed, meshed, reticulated. Any of those of use to you? --Viennese Waltz 11:57, 31 March 2021 (UTC)

Further to the above, Roget also associates valley with the concept of "concavity". Related adjectives: concave, hollow, cavernous, vaulted, arched, curved, hollowed out, scooped out, dug out, etc. --Viennese Waltz 12:04, 31 March 2021 (UTC)

Thank you, Viennese Waltz, but actually, no they're not helpful, in that I'm hoping for something topographical. At this point I'd like to pretend to be thankful to you for reminding me of rimous, rimose and , which had faded from my memory; but I can't do that with a straight face/keystroke: the embarrassing fact is that none of the three looked at all familiar. So thank you for teaching me some words! -- Hoary (talk) 12:17, 31 March 2021 (UTC)

I was thinking something derived from the Latin vallis, perhaps "vallisiate" or "vallisian"? Apparently not. The Pennine Alps are sometimes called the "Vallisian Alps", but after the Swiss canton of Valais. Surely there's a word to describe a town in a valley analogous to "coastal" for a town on the coast? Alansplodge (talk) 12:09, 31 March 2021 (UTC)

Indeed, I would have thought so. (Of course one can simply use a noun: "a valley town".) -- Hoary (talk) 12:17, 31 March 2021 (UTC)

Per Hoary, English has a strong ability to use noun adjuncts to press nouns into service as adjectives; such a process is highly productive in English and often works where no other adjective can be found. --Jayron32 12:22, 31 March 2021 (UTC)

• This suggests "valleyed" may be the best English adjective meaning "having valleys" in the same way that "mountainous" means "having mountains" --Jayron32 12:13, 31 March 2021 (UTC)

  This concurs. --Jayron32 12:14, 31 March 2021 (UTC)

I'd not heard of WordHippo; thank you for the link. But I notice that it hasn't heard of riparian; its vocabulary may be very gappy. -- Hoary (talk) 12:22, 31 March 2021 (UTC)

I've never heard of riparian, I think fluminary is better. Temerarius (talk) 23:43, 31 March 2021 (UTC)

Or even riverine. Alansplodge (talk) 00:09, 1 April 2021 (UTC)

Vallate is a valid though rarely used word: see for example (Circum)vallate papillae. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 2.219.35.136 (talk) 00:25, 1 April 2021 (UTC)

Wikt:vallate suggests "cup-shaped or circumvallate", from the Latin vallo, to surround with a wall or rampart. Alansplodge (talk) 00:35, 1 April 2021 (UTC)