ghat

• ghât
• (a ravine leading to the sea): ghaut

From Hindi घाट (ghāṭ, “pier”), from Sanskrit घट्ट (ghaṭṭa, “a landing-place, steps on the side of a river leading to the waters”). Perhaps related to Telugu కట్ట (kaṭṭa, “dam, embankment”).

• (UK) IPA^(key): /ɡɔːt/, /ɡɑːt/
• Rhymes: -ɔːt

ghat (plural ghats)

1. (India) A descending path or stairway to a river; a ford or landing-place.

   1855, Joseph Dalton Hooker, Flora Indica:

   • The abrupt escarpment of the western Ghats condenses so much of the moisture of the south-west monsoon

   • 2008, Aravind Adiga, The White Tiger, Atlantic 2009, p. 16:

     Chunks of wood were being built into funeral pyres on the steps of the ghat that went down into the water; four bodies were burning on the ghat steps when we got there.

2. (India) A mountain range.
   • 1885, Edward Balfour, Cyclopaedia of India:

     And farther south, in the interior of the Peninsula, in the elevated tract from 1200 to 2400 feet above the sea, between the Eastern and Western Ghats

3. (India) A mountain pass.
4. (Caribbean) A steep ravine leading to the sea.
5. (India) A burning-ghat.

• GTHA