Hill
nounA naturally raised area of land, lower and more rounded than a mountain.
How to spell hill
4 letters · 1 syllable
How to pronounce hill
What does hill mean?
- nounA naturally raised area of land, lower and more rounded than a mountain.
Hill in a sentence
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The old farmhouse sits on top of a steep hill.
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Cyclists dread the long hill on the final stretch of the route.
Where does hill come from?
Language of origin: Germanic
Hill comes straight from Old English hyll, the ordinary Anglo-Saxon word for a raised piece of ground, and it has changed remarkably little in well over a thousand years. The root traces back to a Proto-Germanic form hulnja and ultimately to a Proto-Indo-European root meaning 'to rise' or 'to be prominent', the same deep source that lies behind Latin collis 'hill' and columna 'column'. Because it is one of the bedrock landscape words of English, it appears constantly in place names and surnames, from Notting Hill to plain old Mr Hill. The spelling has stayed simple and phonetic, with the doubled l that English regularly attaches to short single-syllable words after a short vowel, much as in 'fill', 'mill' and 'bell'. Its long, stable history is why the word feels so plain and unremarkable today.
How the word is built
- hill (Old English hyll: a natural elevation), no affixes; a single native root
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