ridge

Etymology

From Middle English rigge, rygge, (also rig, ryg, rug), from Old English hryċġ (“back, spine, ridge, elevated surface”), from Proto-West Germanic *hrugi, from Proto-Germanic *hrugjaz (“back”), from Proto-Indo-European *(s)krewk-, *(s)ker- (“to turn, bend”). Cognate with Scots rig (“back, spine, ridge”), North Frisian reg (“back”), West Frisian rêch (“back”), Dutch rug (“back, ridge”), German Rücken (“back, ridge”), Swedish rygg (“back, spine, ridge”), Icelandic hryggur (“spine”). Cognate to Albanian kërrus (“to bend one's back”) and kurriz (“back”).

noun

1. (anatomy) The back of any animal; especially the upper or projecting part of the back of a quadruped.
2. Any extended protuberance; a projecting line or strip.
   The plough threw up ridges of earth between the furrows.
3. The line along which two sloping surfaces meet which diverge towards the ground.
   mountain ridge
4. The highest point on a roof, represented by a horizontal line where two roof areas intersect, running the length of the area.
   Maccario, it was evident, did not care to take the risk of blundering upon a picket, and a man led them by twisting paths until at last the hacienda rose blackly before them. Appleby could see it dimly, a blur of shadowy buildings with the ridge of roof parapet alone cutting hard and sharp against the clearing sky. 1907, Harold Bindloss, chapter 26, in The Dust of Conflict
5. (fortifications) The highest portion of the glacis proceeding from the salient angle of the covered way.
   the British Guards lie down behind a ridge to avoid the shot and shell from the opposite heights 1853-1855, Joachim Hayward Stocqueler, The Life of Field-Marshal the Duke of Wellington
6. A chain of mountains.
7. A chain of hills.
8. (oceanography) A long narrow elevation on an ocean bottom.
9. (meteorology) An elongated region of high atmospheric pressure.

verb

1. (transitive) To form into a ridge
2. (intransitive) To extend in ridges