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ENGLISH · A WORD WITH POSSIBILITIES

hill.

An elevated landmass smaller than a mountain.

4 characters1 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

noun/hɪl/[hɪɫ]Received-Pronunciation, US[hɪo̯][hɪʊ̯]
  1. An elevated landmass smaller than a mountain.

    The park is sheltered from the wind by a hill to the east.
  2. A sloping part of a landscape, especially one with a road, trail, etc.

    You need to pick up speed to get up the hill that's coming up.
  3. A heap of earth surrounding a plant.

    US
  4. A single cluster or group of plants growing close together, and having the earth heaped up about them.

    US
    a hill of corn or potatoes
  5. The pitcher’s mound.

  6. The raised portion of the surface of a vinyl record.

Where this word comes from

From Middle English hil (“hill”), from Old English hyll (“hill”), from Proto-West Germanic *hulli (“hill”), from Proto-Germanic *hulliz (“hill”), from Proto-Indo-European *kl̥Hnís (“top, hill, rock”) (compare also Proto-Germanic *halluz (“stone, rock”)). Cognate with Middle Dutch hille, hulle (“hill”), Low German hull (“hill”), Faroese hólur (“hill”), Icelandic and Old Norse hóll (“hill”), Norn hul (“hillock”), Norwegian hol (“low hillock”), Swedish kulle (“hill”), Catalan coll (“hill”), Italian colle (“hill”), Latin collis (“hill”), Lithuanian kalnas (“hill, mountain”), Albanian kallumë (“big pile, tall heap”), Russian холм (xolm, “hill”), Old English holm (“rising land, island”). More at holm.

verb/hɪl/[hɪɫ]Received-Pronunciation, US[hɪo̯][hɪʊ̯]
  1. To form into a heap or mound.

  2. To heap or draw earth around plants.

Where this word comes from

From Middle English hil (“hill”), from Old English hyll (“hill”), from Proto-West Germanic *hulli (“hill”), from Proto-Germanic *hulliz (“hill”), from Proto-Indo-European *kl̥Hnís (“top, hill, rock”) (compare also Proto-Germanic *halluz (“stone, rock”)). Cognate with Middle Dutch hille, hulle (“hill”), Low German hull (“hill”), Faroese hólur (“hill”), Icelandic and Old Norse hóll (“hill”), Norn hul (“hillock”), Norwegian hol (“low hillock”), Swedish kulle (“hill”), Catalan coll (“hill”), Italian colle (“hill”), Latin collis (“hill”), Lithuanian kalnas (“hill, mountain”), Albanian kallumë (“big pile, tall heap”), Russian холм (xolm, “hill”), Old English holm (“rising land, island”). More at holm.

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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.

Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.