Tilt, Tor, Tumulus, Upland: 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: tilt, tor, tumulus, upland, and related words. 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.

Tilt
The slope-related noun tilt (19th century) comes from the verb tilt ("to cause to lean or slope," 16th century).

Both the noun and the verb had earlier senses. The noun referred to a contest on horseback in which each of two combatants with lances tried to knock the other out of the saddle (1511). That noun came from the Middle English verb tilten or tulten ("to cause to fall," 14th century), akin to Swedish tulta ("to waddle").

Geologic strata on an abrupt incline caused by an upheaval is a tilt (1859). More generally, any sloping surface, such as a piece of land, is a tilt (1903).

Tor
Modern English tor comes from Middle English tor (14th century), from Old English torr (before 1100). The word is probably of Celtic origin, akin to Scottish Gaelic torr ("mound") and Irish torran ("hillock").

A high rocky hill is a tor (9th century).

The word is used in many place-names in Great Britain, such as Shining Tor in the Peak District of England.

Tumulus
Tumulus is taken from Latin tumulus ("mound, hill, grave"), which is akin to tumere ("to swell").

An artificial mound or hillock, especially over an ancient grave, is a tumulus (plural, tumuli). According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the word was first recorded in 1398 by a writer who called a down a tumulus, or a "swelling" piece of land. Its regular use in English began in 1686.

Upland
Upland is a simple combination of up and land.

High land-such as a plateau, a stretch of hilly country, or an area of ground elevated above the lowlands along rivers-is an upland (16th century).

The prefix up- has produced other topographical words.

Upgrade. An upward slope (1873).

Uphill. A stretch of rising ground (1548).

Uplift. An uplifted mass of land (1853).

Uprise. An upward slope (1875).
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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.