Shelf, Side, Slant, Slope: 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: shelf, side, slant, and slope. 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.

Shelf
Modern English shelf comes from Middle English shelf (15th century) and its plural shelves (14th century). Its earlier history is uncertain, but it probably comes from Old English scylfe ("deck of a ship," hence "shelf"), which is akin to Old English scylf ("pinnacle, crag, ledge") and Old Norse skjalf ("bench, seat") in hlithskjalf ("Odin's throne," Odin being the supreme god in Norse mythology).

The primary use of shelf since the Middle English period has been to denote a flat horizontal piece of material to hold objects. But the word has also been applied to any object that resembles a storage shelf.

That extension of the word shelf has included at least two important topographical features that are shelflike (flat) and hill-like (raised): a sandbank rising significantly above the floor of a body of water (1545) and a platform, terrace, or ledge of earth or rock (1809).

A continental shelf (1892), on the other hand, is a slope. It is the submerged gradually sloping border of a continent. (For continental slope, see slope below.)

Side
The common spatial-directional word side goes back through Middle English side to Old English side. It is akin to Old High German sita ("side").

A slope of a hill, especially when considered as opposed to another slope on the same hill, is called a side (c. 1250).

Slant
The noun slant evolved in the 17th century, probably as an alteration of the now-dialectal (in Great Britain) slent ("slant, slope"), from Middle English slent, of Scandinavian origin. Slent is akin to Swedish slant ("slant, slope") and slinta ("to slide").

A slanting stretch of ground, such as the slope of a hill, is a slant (1655).

Slope
Like slant, the noun slope emerged in the 17th century from a cloudy etymological background. Apparently it comes from slope as an adjective ("sloping," 16th century) and adverb ("in a sloping manner, obliquely," 15th century). Its connection with the earlier adjective-adverb aslope is uncertain.

Slope denotes any sort of inclination or inclined surface (1611).

Topographically a slope is a stretch of rising or falling ground (1626).

A usually steep slope from the edge of a continental shelf (see shelf above) to the ocean floor is a continental slope (1900).
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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.