cliff-dwellern.
/ˈklɪfˌdwɛlə/, U.S. /ˈklɪfˌdwɛlər/ 1. A person who lives on a cliff; spec. a member of any of various peoples who build and inhabit homes in niches or caves in cliff faces, esp. in the south-western United States (now chiefly historical).
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1875 Inter Ocean (Chicago) 24 Sept. 3/2 I should say a word about..the niches or alcoves in which the cliff-dwellers built their little durable houses.
1884 Chambers's Jrnl. 19 Jan. 40/2 The houses of the cliff-dwellers.
1948 P. Johnston Lost & Living Cities Calif. Gold Rush 46/2 Like the cliff dwellers of the Southwest, the men who worked in those diggin's have vanished.
1993 Southwest Trav. & Recreation Q. Spring 4/2 The cliff dwellers had abandoned their homes and fields by the early 1300s.
2. U.S. slang. A person who lives in a tall building.In quot. 1893 also with punning reference to the name of Clifton Building, a fictionalized Chicago skyscraper in which the novel is set.
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1893 H. B. Fuller Cliff-dwellers Introd. 5 The Clifton aims to be complete within itself, and it will be unnecessary for us to go afield..during the present simple succession of brief episodes in the lives of the Cliff-dwellers.
1897 Harper's Bazar 21 Aug. 704/1 City dwellers are fast becoming a race of cliff-dwellers, albeit the homes are somewhat modified by the modern march of improvement.
1916 Amer. Mag. Apr. 31/2 You cliff-dweller on Manhattan, what would you do without Michigan?
2010 N.Y. Times 22 Feb. a14/1 New York's cliff-dwellers have long found inventive ways of customizing their living spaces, and untold secrets lie behind the city's apartment doors.
This entry has been updated (OED Third Edition, September 2016; most recently modified version published online March 2022).
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n.1875