''alpine'' ▫ᴱᴺ Entries

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''alpine'' ▫ᴱᴺ｜Definition｜1st｜20260305143651-00-⌔

alpine - Wiktionary, the free dictionary

English

Adjective

alpine (comparative more alpine, superlative most alpine)

• Of, relating to, or inhabiting mountains, especially above the timberline.
  • ✤ Synonym: montane
  • ✤ * alpine snows*; * alpine plants*
  • ✤ What are alpine plants? The word alpine is used to denote the plants that grow naturally on all high mountain-chains, whether they spring from hot tropical plains or from green northern pastures. Above the cultivated land these flowers begin to occur on the fringes of the stately woods; they are seen in multitudes in the vast pastures which clothe many great mountain-chains, enamelling their soft verdure; and also where neither grass nor loose herbage can exist; or where feeble world-heat is quenched and mountains are crumbled into ghastly slopes of shattered rock by the contending forces of heat and cold, even there, amid the glaciers, they spring from Nature’s ruined battle-ground, as if the mother of earth-life had sent up her loveliest children to plead with the spirits of destruction. Alpine plants fringe the vast fields of snow and ice of the high mountains, and at great elevations have often scarcely time to flower and ripen a few seeds before they are again imbedded in the snow; […]¹
  • (sometimes specifically) Alternative letter-case form of Alpine: Of, relating to, or inhabiting the Alps, a large mountain range in Europe.
    • ✤ Hypernym: montane
• (skiing) Of or relating to slalom and downhill skiing.
  • ✤ Coordinate term: Nordic

Noun

alpine (plural alpines)

• (botany) Any of several plants, native to mountain habitats, often grown in rock gardens.
  • ✤ There can be little doubt that the autumn-flowering gentians are the elite of late-flowering alpines, but alas they can only be enjoyed by those gardeners with an acid soil, unless they can be grown in containers.²

Etymology

From Latin Alpīnus, from Alpēs (“the Alps”). Cognates include French alpin.

Pronunciation

• (US) IPA: /ˈæl.paɪn/
  • Audio (Southern England): 🔊
• (obsolete) IPA: /ˈæl.pɪn/³

Printed 2026-06-28.

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Footnotes

1. 1910, William Robinson, “Forewords to new edition”, in Alpine Flowers for Gardens: Rock, Wall, Marsh Plants, and Mountain Shrubs ‎${}^{[2]}$, 4th edition, John Murray, page ix-x: ↩

2. 1991, Jack Elliott, Alpines in the Open Garden, Christopher Helm, →ISBN, page 64: ↩

3. Hurd, Seth P. (1847), “Alpine”, in “False Pronunciation”, in A Grammatical Corrector; or, A Vocabulary of the Common Errors of Speech ‎${}^{[1]}$, Philadelphia: E. H. Butler & Co, →OCLC, page 78. ↩

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