rift

Etymology 1

Middle English rift, of North Germanic origin; akin to Danish rift, Norwegian Bokmål rift (“breach”), Old Norse rífa (“to tear”). More at rive.

noun

1. A chasm or fissure.
   My marriage is in trouble: the fight created a rift between us and we can't reconnect.
   The Grand Canyon is a rift in the Earth's surface, but is smaller than some of the undersea ones.
2. A break in the clouds, fog, mist etc., which allows light through.
   I have but one rift in the darkness, that is that I have injured no one save myself by my folly, and that the extent of that folly you will never learn. 1931, William Faulkner, Sanctuary, Vintage, published 1993, page 130
3. A shallow place in a stream; a ford.

verb

1. (intransitive) To form a rift; to split open.
2. (transitive) To cleave; to rive; to split.
   to rift an oak
   The Mother—her thou must have seen, / In spirit, ere she came / To dwell these rifted rocks between. 1822, William Wordsworth, A Jewish Family (in a small valley opposite St. Goar, upon the Rhine), lines 9–11
   1894, Ivan Dexter, Talmud: A Strange Narrative of Central Australia, published in serial form in Port Adelaide News and Lefevre's Peninsula Advertiser (SA), Chapter III, http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks16/1600641.txt he stopped rigid as one petrified and gazed through the rifted logs of the raft into the water.

Etymology 2

From Old Norse rypta.

verb

1. (obsolete outside Scotland and northern UK) To belch.

Etymology 3

verb

1. past participle of rive
   The mightie trunck halfe rent, with ragged rift Doth roll adowne the rocks, and fall with fearefull drift.