Mound, Mount, Mountain, Over: Origins, Forms, 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: mound, mount, mountain, and over. 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.

Mound
Mound is of uncertain origin. The noun (mid-16th century) probably comes from the verb (early 16th century), whose earliest meaning was to enclose with a fence, later to enclose with an embankment of earth.

The original meaning of the noun mound was a hedge or other fence bounding a field or garden (1551). That sense of the word is now archaic except in dialectal usage in England.

The next meaning to evolve for mound was a military one: an earthwork thrown up for protection during battle, hence any sort of embankment or dam (1558). That sense, too, is now archaic.

Two later extended meanings are still widely used: an artificial elevation of earth or stones, especially over a burial site (1726); and a natural elevation of small size, a hillock, especially a rounded one (1810).

Mount
Modern English mount comes from Middle English mount (13th century), from Old English munt (before 1100) and Old French mont, both from Latin mont-, a combining form of mons ("mountain"). The Latin noun is akin to the verb minari ("to project").

The original meaning of mount was a high hill or mountain (c. 893). From the 17th century on, the word came to refer to a smaller elevation, such as a hillock. Its principal use today is before an identifying name, as in Mount Everest.

Mount has two meanings that are basically synonymous with mound.

One is the military term for protective earthwork (1558). Like mound, mount is archaic in this sense and is used mainly in historical contexts.

The other meaning is an artificial elevation of earth or stones, especially over a burial site (1591). In this sense, mound is more frequently used than mount.

Mountain
Modern English mountain comes from Middle English mountain (14th century) and various earlier spellings (13th century) reflecting their origin in Old French montaigne, which goes back through several Latin forms to mont-, a combining form of mons ("mountain").

A mountain is a land mass that rises abruptly to an altitude conspicuously above its surroundings (c. 1205).

Before the 13th century, this definition fit the native English word hill.

However, beginning in the 13th century, the word mountain gradually supplanted hill in references to higher elevations, with hill being used for lower heights. That basic distinction still prevails, with local variations in interpretation (in a level region, for example, a certain height may be regarded as a mountain, while the same height in a mountainous region may be termed merely a hill).

Over
Over as a topographical noun is an obsolete word whose Middle English spellings included ovre and whose Old English form was ofer, akin to Middle Low German over and Middle Dutch oever.

The word had a cluster of related meanings, apparently originally a border or margin, specifically a seacoast or riverbank, hence any bank, slope, or little hill.

Over survives in many place-names in England, with the local interpretation of the word depending on the local topography. In some places the word may mean "slope," in other places "riverbank," and so on.

For example, in two suburbs of Derby, England, the word means "hill": Littleover is "little hill," while nearby Mickleover is "large hill" (mickle is an old word for "great, large").
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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.