Crest, Crown, Downland, Escarpment: Origins, Forms, and Histories of Words Meaning Hill or Slope

The natural features of a region are called its topography. The word comes from Greek topos ("place").

English speakers have a long history of inventing (or borrowing from other languages) all sorts of different names for related topographical features.

Hill and slopes, for example, are known by a wide range of words in English, each with its own unique story to tell.

In the alphabetically arranged presentation of such terms in the current series, the next words are these: crest, crown, downgrade, downhill, downland, and escarpment. Here is an overview of their origins, forms, and histories. The dates of first appearance of the forms and meanings are from the Oxford English Dictionary.

Crest
Modern English crest goes back through Middle English crest (14th century), Middle English creste (14th century), and Middle French creste to Latin crista ("tuft, plume"). The word is akin to Old English hrisian ("to shake") and Old High German hris ("twig").

The original meaning of crest is a showy tuft on the head of an animal. The word has developed many extended meanings for anything suggesting an animal's crest.

In particular, the top line of a hill or a mountain is a crest (c. 1340).

Crown
Modern English crown (17th century) goes back through Middle English crowne (14th century) , Middle English coroune (14th century), Old French corone, and Latin corona ("wreath, crown") to Greek korone ("culmination, something curved like a crow's beak," literally "crow"). The word is akin to Latin cornix ("crow") and Greek korax ("raven").

Crown principally denotes an encircling ornament for the head or something suggesting such an ornament.

The rounded summit of a hill or a mountain is a crown (1583).

Downgrade, Downhill
A downgrade is a downward grade or slope (1858).

A downhill is a descending slope (1591).

Downland
A down is an undulating upland, like a series of little hills. A synonymous term is downland, which goes back to Old English dunland (before 1100).

Escarpment
Escarpment entered English in the early 19th century from French escarpement, which goes back through escarper ("to scarp," that is, "to cut down to a steep slope"), Middle French escarper, and Middle French escarpe ("scarp, steep slope") to Old Italian scarpa ("scarp, steep slope"). The word is akin to Old English scearp ("sharp").

A steep slope in front of a fortification is an escarpment (1802).

An escarpment is also a steep slope separating two gently sloping surfaces in a hill range (1813).
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Encyclopaedia Britannica Ready Reference 2004. CD-ROM. Encyclopaedia Britannica, 2004.

Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary. 11th ed. Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster, 2006.

Merriam-Webster's Geographical Dictionary. 3rd ed. Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster, 2007.

The Oxford English Dictionary. 2nd ed. Oxford, England: Clarendon Press, 1989.