Plateau, Platform, Point, Promontory: 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: plateau, platform, point, and promontory. 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.

Plateau
Plateau was borrowed into English from French in the 18th century. The French word comes from Middle French plateau ("plate, platter"), from the adjective plat ("flat").

Plateau usually denotes an extensive sharply elevated area of flat, or relatively level, land (1796).

Platform
Platform entered English in the 16th century from Middle French plate-forme ("diagram, map," literally "flat form"). The Middle French word combines plate (feminine of plat, "flat") and forme ("form"). From the 16th to the 18th centuries, the English version was often spelled as two words or with a hyphen.

English platform quickly acquired many meanings stemming from the Middle French word: a flat surface, hence a plan written on a flat surface, hence a plan itself.

One sense of the word was a raised level surface of any kind (16th century). Eventually that idea led to a topographical meaning of platform: a flat elevated piece of ground, a plateau (1813).

Point
Point entered Middle English in the 13th century from two Old French words, point ("small spot, point in time or space") and pointe ("sharp end"), which go back to Latin punctus, the past participle of pungere ("to pierce").

English developed a vast range of literal and figurative meanings of point based on the senses of both Old French words.

Eventually the "sharp end" category produced a topographical meaning of point: a projecting, usually tapering, piece of land (such as a promontory jutting into a body of water) or a sharp peak on a hill or mountain (1553).

Promontory
Promontory entered English in the 16th century as an adaptation of Medieval Latin promontorium, an alteration (influenced by mont-, mons, "mountain") of Latin promunturium ("mountain ridge, promontory"). The Latin noun is akin to the verb prominere ("to jut forward").

Promontory denotes a high point of land or rock projecting into a body of water or into a lowland (1548).
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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.