cliff dweller noun 1.often capitalized C&D a.: one of the people of the Anasazi culture of the American southwest who erected their dwellings on rock ledges or in the recesses of canyon walls and cliffs b.: a member of any cliff-dwelling people 2.: a person who lives in a large usually metropolitan apartment building < the cliff dwellers of Chicago — M.D.Geismar > • cliff dwellingnoun