Rope, belay and route — and the agreements in between.
Practise this list
From these 40 words, as many per round as you like — up to all of them: first what is due today, then new ones. First you choose, then you fill the gap, then you write it yourself. Mistakes come back again shortly.
More about this list
Two thirds of the way down the list is il diedro, the inside corner where two walls of rock meet like an open book, and English climbers, who call it « a corner », lose the geometry that Italian keeps. Diedro is Greek: di-, two, and hédra, a seat, and by extension the face a solid rests on. Two faces, one corner. That hédra is all over English once somebody points at it. A « polyhedron » is many-faced, a « tetrahedron » four-faced. Put katá, down, in front of it and the result is kathédra, something to sit down on, which reached Latin as cathedra and meant the bishop’s throne. The church that holds one is the « cathedral » — an adjective that did the naming, with the noun it once qualified quietly dropped. From that same cathedra, worn down by French, English also has « chair ». So a cathedral, a chair and a rock feature all rest on somewhere to sit, and only the climbing word still says how many.
The words
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Verb (1)
arrampicareto climbVerbB2
Andiamo ad arrampicare la domenica mattina.We go climbing on Sunday mornings.
Phrase (6)
salire da primoto lead a pitchPhraseB2
Oggi sale da primo lui.He is leading today.
fare sicurato belayPhraseB2
Chi fa sicura non guarda il telefono.Whoever is belaying does not look at their phone.
calarsi in corda doppiato abseilPhraseB2
Ci siamo calati in corda doppia dalla cima.We abseiled from the summit.
fare un voloto take a fallPhraseB2
Ha fatto un volo corto e non si è fatto niente.He took a short fall and was not hurt.
a vistaonsightPhraseB2
È salita a vista, senza sapere niente della via.She climbed it onsight, knowing nothing about the route.
in liberaredpointPhraseB2
Alla fine l’ha fatta in libera.In the end he redpointed it.
