a path with sheer drop-offs to <either side>

[WilliamTaft]

Good afternoon, everyone.

An example expression of "drop-off" in Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionaries: a path with sheer drop-offs to either side

Does "either side" mean "either end?"

 

[Rover_KE]

No.

If you were walking along the path, the sides would be on your right and left. The ends are where the path starts and finishes.

 

[Tarheel]

The other example they give there is a better one.

 

[Tarheel]

I can see a sheer drop off in one side, but both sides? One, I'd want to see a picture of that. Two, you'd never get me anywhere near there.

 

[Rover_KE]

I'd want to see a picture of that.

Striding Edge, Helvellyn, English Lake District [click]

 

[Tarheel]

Striding Edge, Helvellyn, English Lake District [click]

This is as close as I want to get.


(That's probably as close as you'll ever get to a sheer dropoff on both sides of a path. In fact, it doesn't look like there is a path.)

 

[Rover_KE]

(That's probably as close as you'll ever get to a sheer dropoff on both sides of a path.

sheer
adj.

1. so thin as to be transparent:sheer stockings.
2. unmixed with anything else:[before a noun]sheer luck; sheer nonsense.
3. extending down or up very steeply: a sheer descent.

(Random House Dictionary)

In fact, it doesn't look like there is a path.)

... begin the challenge of the ridge walk of Striding Edge. Here you can choose to attempt to climb over the top of the ridge, or along one of the paths that runs alongside the ridge ....

(Quoted from the link in post #5.)

 

[Tarheel]

A mountain goat maybe. But I guarantee you that there aren't many people who want to walk down that path. (In the picture only one person is looking in that direction.)

I'm pretty sure I know what "sheer" means.

 

[Skrej]

The Pu’u Manamana ridge trail in Hawaii is a notoriously challenging, yet popular hike. Along the ridge, the path is only about two feet wide. There have been a few deaths hiking it.