Corrie: Meaning (information, definition, explanation, facts)

Corrie is also the common nickname for Coronation Street.

A Corrie is a geographical feature created by glaciation in high mountains. The word is Highland Scots Gaelic and is derived from a gaelic word meaning hollow. It is known in Welsh as a cwm and the French word cirque is used to denote a very similar geographical feature.

The formation of a Corrie

Corries began their lives as small hollows on a relatively smooth slope.

During the ice ages, snow and ice would gather in these hollows, eroding the floor and walls of the hollow, causing them to get larger and deeper. As the hollows grew, so would it gather more snow and ice which would compact into a small glacier. Eventually, the newly formed glacier cut through the lowest edge of the hollow and continue down the hillside.

Due to the bowl shape of the corrie, water often gathers in corries forming a small loch known as a corrie lochen.

As previously stated, the corrie is geologically similar to the French cirque. However, where a corrie is an almost complete bowl beyond which the hill generally slopes quite steeply away, a cirque can also be found at the head of a deep, wide U-shaped valley with a relatively flat floor.

Two corries formed close to each other can erode the seperating rock until it forms a knife-edged ridge known as an arete.

When three or more corries are formed around the summit of a mountain, they can form a horn or pyramidal peak. In some cases, this peak will be made accessible by one or more aretes.