Highlands

How to spell highlands

9 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce highlands

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does highlands mean?

1. nounAn area of high, mountainous, or hilly land, often contrasted with the surrounding lowlands.

Highlands in a sentence

• The remote highlands are often cut off by snow in winter.

• We hiked through the windswept highlands for three days.

Where does highlands come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This is a native English compound, built from two of the oldest words in the language: Old English heah, meaning 'high' or 'tall', and land, meaning 'ground' or 'region'. Both elements are firmly Germanic, with close cousins in Dutch hoog and land and German hoch and Land. The combined form developed naturally to describe elevated or mountainous country, in contrast to the low-lying 'lowlands'. From around the fifteenth century it was applied especially to the mountainous north and west of Scotland, which is why 'the Highlands' became a famous place name. The spelling holds no real surprises once you see it as the two plain words high and land joined together, with the silent gh inherited from the old pronunciation that English speakers long ago stopped sounding out.

How the word is built

• high (elevated)
• land (ground, region)
• -s (plural)