hill

Etymology

From Middle English hill, from Old English hyll (“hill”), from Proto-Germanic *hulliz (“stone, rock”), from Proto-Indo-European *kolən-, *koləm- (“top, hill, rock”). Cognate with Middle Dutch hille, hulle (“hill”), Low German hull (“hill”), Old Norse hóll (“hill”), Latin collis (“hill”), Lithuanian kalnas, Albanian kallumë (“big pile, tall heap”), Russian холм (xolm, “hill”), Old English holm (“rising land, island”). More at holm.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /hɪl/

• Audio (US)

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ɪl
• Homophone: heel (in some dialects)

Noun

hill (plural hills)

1. An elevated location smaller than a mountain.

   The park is sheltered from the wind by a hill to the east.

   • 1908, W[illiam] B[lair] M[orton] Ferguson, Zollenstein, New York, N.Y.: D. Appleton & Company, OCLC 29686887 , chapter IV:

     So this was my future home, I thought! […] Backed by towering hills, the but faintly discernible purple line of the French boundary off to the southwest, a sky of palest Gobelin flecked with fat, fleecy little clouds, it in truth looked a dear little city; the city of one's dreams.

2. A sloping road.

   You need to pick up speed to get up the hill that's coming up.

3. (US) A heap of earth surrounding a plant.
4. (US) A single cluster or group of plants growing close together, and having the earth heaped up about them.

   a hill of corn or potatoes

5. (baseball) The pitcher’s mound.

Verb

hill (third-person singular simple present hills, present participle hilling, simple past and past participle hilled)

1. To form into a heap or mound.
2. To heap or draw earth around plants.
   • 1977, Gene Weltfish, The Lost Universe: Pawnee Life and Culture, page 102:

     After the seeds were inserted, the earth was hilled up all around into a smooth little mound.

Etymology

Cognate with Icelandic hilla, Swedish hylla.

Noun

hill f (definite singular hilla)

1. shelf