hillock

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English hillok, also hullok,^[2] formed from English hill + -ock (“diminutive suffix”).^{[3][4][5][6][7][8]} Hill is from Old English hyll, from Proto-Germanic *hulniz,^[3][5] from Proto-Indo-European *kel- (“to be prominent; hill”).^[5] The OED compares Latin collis (“hill”) and culmen (“top”).^[3]

Earliest recorded meaning

A little hill: before 1382, in the early version of the Wycliffite Bible, where hullokys or hillokis renders Latin tumulus in Joshua 11:13.^[3][2] Etymonline finds the form as a surname about 1200,^[5] and the Middle English Dictionary notes its use in surnames and place names.^[2]

Semantic evolution

The word had both a natural and an artificial meaning from the start: the Wycliffite Bible also has it in 1382 for a small heap of stones or earth in Genesis 31:51,^[3] and the Middle English Dictionary separates "small hill, knoll" from "artificial mound".^[2] From about 1527 to 1668 it was also used of any hump or bump on a surface.^[3][7] Johnson (1755) simply defined it as "a little hill", quoting Sidney and Milton's "hillocks green".^[9] A verb, to heap up into a hillock, appears in Cowper's translation of the Odyssey (1791), and the Shorter Oxford calls it archaic or poetic.^[3][7] In north-west Derbyshire dialect hillock meant simply the surface of the ground, with no idea of height.^[10]

Timeline

• c. 1200 – as a surname.^[5]
• before 1382 – a little hill.^[3][2]
• 1382 – a small mound or heap of earth or stones.^[3][2]
• c. 1527 – a hump or bump on a surface (obsolete by 1668).^[3]
• 1791 – verb, to heap up into a hillock.^[3]

Meanings

Noun

1. A small hill; a knoll or rise in the ground: Sheep grazed on the hillocks behind the farm.^[11][4][3]
2. A small mound or heap of earth, stones or the like.^[11][7][3]
3. (obsolete, c. 1527–1668) A hump or bump on a surface.^[3][7]

Verb

1. (archaic) To form into a hillock; to heap up.^[7][3]

Word family

• hillocky
• hillocked

Related words

• hill
• holm

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f Kurath, Hans; Kuhn, Sherman M.; Lewis, Robert E., eds. (1952–2001), Middle English Dictionary, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press; online edition ed. Frances McSparran et al. (2000–2018)
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
4. ^ a b Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
5. ^ a b c d e Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
6. ^ Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
7. ^ a b c d e f Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
8. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
9. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
10. ^ Wright, Joseph, ed. (1898–1905), The English Dialect Dictionary, 6 vols., Oxford: Henry Frowde; via EDD Online 4.0, University of Innsbruck (CC BY 4.0)
11. ^ a b Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins