Noun: mountain
| Singular | mountain |
| Plural | mountains |
Sample Sentences
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Everest is the highest mountain in the world.
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We spent the weekend hiking in the mountains.
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We collected plant specimens from mountain meadows above 2000 meters.
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My people hath been lost sheep: their shepherds have caused them to go astray, they have turned them away on the mountains: they have gone from mountain to hill, they have forgotten their restingplace. [1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, Jeremiah 50:6:]
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Wherever a geologist directs his attention in the midst of a scene of mountains, traces of ruin and decay always meet his eye; and the lofty prominences of our globe, supposed to be the most permanent of nature's works, every where display unequivocal marks of the lapse and effects of time. [1807, Joseph Wilson, “Preliminary Observations”, in A History of Mountains, Geographical and Mineralogical, volume 1, London: Nicol, White, Faulders & Asperne, pages xlvi–xlvii:]
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We walk’d together on the crown
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Of a high mountain which look’d down
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Afar from its proud natural towers
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Of rock and forest, on the hills— […] [1829, Edgar Allan Poe, “Tamerlane”, in Al Aaraaf, Tamerlane and Minor Poems:]
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He was a real mountain of a man, standing seven feet tall.
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There's still a mountain of work to do.
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Iraq says the mountain of documentation it has provided to the United Nations shows it is innocent of harbouring weapons of mass destruction. America continues to maintain that it has evidence that this is a pack of lies. [2002 December 9, “A Mountain of Lies?”, in The Economist:]
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Five minutes into the game the Black Cats were facing a mountain, partly because of West Brom's newly-found ruthlessness in front of goal but also as a result of the home side's defensive generosity. [2011 October 1, Phil Dawkes, “Sunderland 2 - 2 West Brom”, in BBC Sport:]
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Called on Courtenay, with whom I walked to Hampstead Heath, and got into excellent spirits, enjoying fine fresh air; then dined with him tête-a-tête on mutton broth and mackerel and drank mountain and old port moderately. [1785-1789, James Boswell, The English Experiment (diaries):]
Nouns inflected like mountain
soldier's woundwort,
Nicosian,
whopper,
greypate,
tactile sign language,
chronotrope,
Rosie Lee,
dissentient,
photoinactivator,
sulphonediimine,
coastal waterfall,
residuary devise,
bituminization,
nitrosonaphthol,
smṛiti,
geosphere,
backscreen,
mensuralist,
flocculate,
flocculant, etc. (List truncated at 20 nouns)
Etymology
From Middle English mountayne, mountain, montaigne, from Anglo-Norman muntaine, muntaigne, from Early Medieval Latin montānia, a collective based on Latin montem (“mountain”), from Proto-Indo-European *monti (compare Welsh mynydd (“mountain”), Albanian mat (“bank, shore”), Avestan 𐬨𐬀𐬙𐬌 (mati, “promontory”)), from *men- (“to project, stick out”). Displaced native English barrow (from Old English beorg) and down (from Old English dūn), and partially displaced non-native Old English munt, from Latin mōns (whence English mount). See: Middle English Nouns '
mountayne', Latin Nouns '
mōns', Old English Nouns '
munt', English Nouns '
mount'.