Other forms: highlands
Highland is high mountainous country. The Scottish Highlands, highland cattle, a highland village.
Capitalised and plural it means the north and west of Scotland, and the Highland and Lowland division is cultural as much as geographic — different languages, different clothing, different history. Highland cattle are the long-haired ones with the horns.
1nounhighlandHigh mountainous country.
“Few trees grow on the cold, windy highland above the village.”
highland is a landscape.
Old English heahland, high plus land. The Scottish sense grew from the plain description.
Proto-West Germanic
*hauhaland
Old English
hēahland — highland
Middle English
hy laund
English, today
highland
Built from
From Middle English hy laund, holond (“highland, upland”), from Old English hēahland (“highland”), from Proto-West Germanic hauhaland, hauhalandī; equivalent to high + land. Cognate with Scots hieland (“highland”), Dutch hoogland (“highland”), German Hochland (“highland”), Danish højland (“highland”), Swedish högland (“highland”).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA