rift

noun

1)

a deep rift in the ice

Syn:

crack, fault, flaw, split, break, breach, fissure, fracture, cleft, crevice, cavity, opening

2)

the rift between them

Syn:

breach, division, split; quarrel, squabble, disagreement, falling-out, row, argument, dispute, conflict, feud; estrangement; informal spat, scrap

••

riff, rift

These two are sometimes confused. Riff is now largely confined to jazz and pop-music contexts. It refers to a melodic phrase, usually repeated and often played in unison by several instruments; sometimes it's a variation on a tune, and it may be either an accompaniment to a solo or the only melodic element — e.g.: "With guitar riffs so rudimentary they seem to have been made up on the spot, … the U.K. sextet played with rude ebullience." (Chicago Tribune; Sept. 29, 2000.) The term dates only from the mid-twentieth century — and has little discernible relation to the older, mostly obsolete senses of riff (= [1] a string of onions, [2] the diaphragm, or [3] the mange; an itchy rash). That's probably because this particular riff seems to have originated as a truncated form of the musical term refrain.

Rift arose in Middle English in the sense "a fissure or divide; a split or crack" — the meaning it still carries — e.g.: "Word out of Washington is that Bondra wants to change teams because of a rift with coach Ron Wilson." (Boston Globe; Oct. 1, 2000.) Occasionally the term also refers to the rapids formed by rocks protruding from the bed of a stream. It formerly also meant "a burp" — a sense long obsolete.

Although the Oxford English Dictionary records two early-seventeenth-century uses of riff in the obsolete sense "rift, chink", the modern use of the word in that sense appears to be nothing more than rank word-swapping resulting from sound association — e.g.: "The way he sees it, things aren't bad at all. No riffs [read rifts] between him and crew chief Todd Parrott." (USA Today; May 26, 2000.) — BG