Mountains

How to spell mountains

9 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce mountains

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does mountains mean?

1. nounLarge natural elevations of the earth's surface rising steeply above the surrounding land.

Mountains in a sentence

• Snow covered the distant mountains all through the winter.

• They spent the holiday hiking in the mountains near the border.

Where does mountains come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word traces back to the Latin mons, with the stem montem, meaning simply 'mountain' or 'large hill'. From that root grew the Vulgar Latin word montanea, an adjective sense of 'mountainous land', which passed into Old French as montaigne. English took it on during the 1200s as 'mountain', and the plural 'mountains' has followed the ordinary English rule of adding -s ever since. The same mons root sits inside many familiar relatives such as 'mount', 'amount', 'paramount', and place names like Montana, so the silent middle of the word is easier to recall once you see the 'mount' hiding inside it. The slightly awkward part for spellers is the unstressed ending, where 'tain' is pronounced as a faint 'tn' yet must keep its full -ain spelling.

How the word is built

• mount- (from Latin mons/montem: mountain)
• -ain (noun suffix from French)
• -s (plural)