knoll

[prettygoodword]

knoll (NOHL) - n., a small rounded hill; hillock.


Largely British usage, but not entirely -- knowe is the Scottish version. (It's also an obsolete variant of knell, as in ring a bell, but we'll ignore that.) The word implies being disconnected from other hills. At the smaller size may blur into a mound, while the larger ones blur into a butte or even a small mesa. Dates back to Old English, when it was dressed up as cnoll, cognate with words in several Germanic language with a general sense of summit and lumpy thing.

---L.

Comments

[mount-oregano.livejournal.com]

There is at least one knoll in Texas, and it is grassy.

[prettygoodword.livejournal.com]

That place has created more confusion in people who don't really know the word -- many of whom, that I talked to, had in the impression that the operative characteristics of knoll is a public grassy area, rather than the hill part.

---L.