S: (n) pass, mountain pass, notch (the location in a range of mountains of a geological formation that is lower than the surrounding peaks) "we got through the pass before it started to snow"
S: (n) defile, gorge (a narrow pass (especially one between mountains))
S: (n) saddleback, saddle (a pass or ridge that slopes gently between two peaks (is shaped like a saddle))
S: (n) Brenner Pass (an Alpine mountain pass connecting Innsbruck in Austria with Bolzano in Italy that has long been a route for trade and for invasions)
S: (n) Cumberland Gap (a pass through the Cumberland Mountains between Virginia and Kentucky that early settlers used in order to move west)
S: (n) Donner Pass (a mountain pass in northeastern California near Lake Tahoe; site where in 1844 some members of an emigrant party survived by eating those who had died)
S: (n) Khyber Pass (a mountain pass of great strategic and commercial value in the Hindu Kush on the border between northern Pakistan and western Afghanistan; a route by which invaders entered India)
S: (v) tarnish, stain, maculate, sully, defile (make dirty or spotty, as by exposure to air; also used metaphorically) "The silver was tarnished by the long exposure to the air"; "Her reputation was sullied after the affair with a married man"
S: (v) foul, befoul, defile, maculate (spot, stain, or pollute) "The townspeople defiled the river by emptying raw sewage into it"