Other forms: mountains
A mountain is a very high piece of land, often with snow on top. Climb a mountain, mountain range, in the mountains.
There is no agreed height at which a hill becomes a mountain, and the figure of a thousand feet often quoted in Britain has no legal basis. Above a certain height the air is too thin to stay alive indefinitely, which climbers call the death zone. Note make a mountain out of a molehill; mountain range; and that mountain comes from the Latin mons, which also gives mount and amount.
1nounmountainA very high piece of land.
“They climbed to the top of the mountain and looked down at the clouds.”
mountain is a landform.
Latin mons, a mountain, gives montania, mountainous country, through Old French. Mount, amount, paramount and surmount come from the same height.
Proto-Indo-European
*men-
Proto-Indo-European
*monti
Latin
mōns — mountain
la-eme
montānia
Anglo-Norman
montaigne
Middle English
mountayne
English, today
mountain
Built from
From Middle English mountayne, mountain, montaigne, from Anglo-Norman montaigne, montaigne, from la-eme montānia, a collective based on Latin mōns (“mountain”), from Proto-Indo-European monti (compare Welsh mynydd (“mountain”), Albanian mat (“bank, shore”), ae 𐬨𐬀𐬙𐬌 (“promontory”)), from men- (“to project, stick out”). Displaced native barrow (from beorg) and down (from dūn), and partially displaced non-native Old English munt, from Latin mōns (whence English mount).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA