Uphill

How to spell uphill

6 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce uphill

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does uphill mean?

1. adverbIn a direction that goes up a slope or rising ground.
2. adjectiveSloping upward, or by extension difficult and requiring sustained effort.

Uphill in a sentence

• adverb

  The cyclists strained as the road climbed steeply uphill.

• adjective

  Persuading the board to change course proved to be an uphill battle.

• adverb

  Pushing the loaded cart uphill left her out of breath.

• adjective

  The final uphill stretch of the marathon tested every runner.

Where does uphill come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This is a transparent native English compound, formed simply by joining 'up' to 'hill'. Both elements are thoroughly Germanic: 'up' descends from Old English 'upp', meaning 'upward' or 'to a higher place', while 'hill' comes from Old English 'hyll', a raised piece of ground, related to Latin 'collis' and an old Indo-European root meaning 'to rise' or 'be prominent'. The literal sense, moving toward the top of a slope, was joined in the 1500s by the figurative sense of something laborious, since climbing a hill is hard work. By the 1800s 'an uphill struggle' was a settled idiom for any difficult, drawn-out effort. Because each part is an ordinary everyday word and the spelling simply runs them together, the only thing to remember is that it is one solid word with a single 'l' on 'up' and the doubled 'l' belonging to 'hill'.

How the word is built

• up (upward)
• hill (raised landform); a compound adverb and adjective