Mountainous

How to spell mountainous

11 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce mountainous

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does mountainous mean?

1. adjectiveHaving many mountains, or huge and towering like a mountain.

Mountainous in a sentence

• The train wound slowly through the mountainous region of the north.

• After the storm, a mountainous heap of debris blocked the road.

Where does mountainous come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This adjective is built on the noun mountain, which reached English through Old French montaigne, itself from the Latin mons (stem montem), simply meaning a mountain or a great mass of rising ground. The Latin -osus ending, which English now spells as -ous and which means 'full of' or 'abounding in', was attached to give the sense 'covered in mountains' or 'resembling a mountain'. English adopted the form in the 1400s, and from early on it carried a second, figurative use describing anything huge or towering, as in a mountainous pile of paperwork. The same mons root still hangs on inside familiar words such as mount, surmount, and the place name Montana. The spelling trap lives in the middle: writers must keep the silent vowel of mountain (the -ai- and the -ai-n) intact and then add only -ous, not -ious.

How the word is built

• mountain (high landform, from Latin mons/montem: mountain)
• -ous (adjective suffix: full of, characterised by)