Alpine

How to spell alpine

6 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce alpine

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does alpine mean?

1. adjectiveRelating to high mountains, especially the Alps, or to the cold, rocky environment found at high altitude.
2. nounA small hardy plant native to mountainous regions, often grown in rock gardens.

Alpine in a sentence

• adjective

  The resort sits in an alpine valley surrounded by snow-covered peaks.

• noun

  He tucked a tiny alpine between the stones of the rockery.

• adjective

  She booked an alpine skiing holiday in the Austrian Tyrol.

• noun

  The nursery sells a range of drought-tolerant alpine varieties.

Where does alpine come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word comes from the Latin Alpinus, meaning 'of the Alps', formed from Alpes, the Roman name for the high mountain chain that arcs across central Europe. The Latin Alpes may itself derive from an older Celtic or pre-Roman word for 'mountain' or possibly from a root meaning 'white', a reference to the snow-capped peaks. English adopted the term in the seventeenth century, first to describe anything connected with the Alps and then more broadly for any high mountain environment above the tree line. Over time it acquired technical uses in gardening, where an alpine is a small hardy plant suited to rocky mountain conditions, and in sport, where alpine skiing means downhill skiing. The spelling stays close to its Latin source, and the only mild trap is the silent final 'e', which keeps the long vowel in the second syllable.

How the word is built

• alp (from the Alps, the great European mountain range)
• -ine (adjective suffix meaning 'relating to')