sheer drop

The cliff has a sheer drop to the water, which is here deep, so that large vessels can pass close inshore.

As Winton's gallery is a sheer drop of thirty feet from the ground, you can imagine it looks strange.

It was a dreadful place to give battle, on that straight shelf of rock overhanging a sheer drop of perhaps a thousand feet.

The veteran gazed down at the sloping expanse of stone that curved to the sheer drop of the precipice.

Lightning played along the black ridges above them, and below was a sheer drop to a river which was only a silver thread.