hilly

Etymology

It is formed from English hill + -y,^[2][3][4][5] first as Middle English hilli, also spelt hully.^[6][7] Dictionary.com relates it to Old English hyllīc,^[8] an adjective meaning "hilly" that Bosworth–Toller records once, with a query, in a charter.^[9] Hill itself is from Old English hyll, which Etymonline traces to Proto-Indo-European *kel- (“to be prominent; hill”).^[3]

Earliest recorded meaning

Full of hills: before 1382, in the first Wycliffite Bible, where hully translates Latin montana and montosa in Deuteronomy.^[6] The OED's first record, from Gower's Confessio Amantis (1390), is in the sense "of the nature of a hill; elevated, steep".^[2][7] Etymonline dates the word to the late 14th century.^[3]

Semantic evolution

The two senses, "having many hills" and "like a hill, steep", have run side by side since Middle English: the MED records both,^[6] and Trevisa wrote of Idumea as a strong land, hully and hoot.^[6] The OED's own first record of the sense "abounding in hills" is from a translation of Higden's Polychronicon of about 1475.^[2] In the 17th century it could also mean "belonging to the hills, hill-dwelling" (1632–98), now obsolete.^[2] Sir Thomas Browne used it in 1658 for "hill-like".^[2] Johnson (1755) defined it as "full of hills; unequal in the surface".^[10] In Galloway the word was used of the sea, rough and running in huge waves (Mactaggart, 1824),^[11] and in American slang and Appalachian speech it meant "difficult, hard to understand" (1942, 1976).^[12]

Timeline

• before 1382 – full of hills.^[6]
• 1390 – of the nature of a hill; elevated, steep.^[2][7]
• 1632 – belonging to the hills, hill-dwelling (obsolete after 1698).^[2]
• 1658 – hill-like.^[2]
• 1824 – in Galloway, of the sea: rough, with huge waves.^[11]
• 1942 – American slang, difficult or obscure.^[12]

Meanings

Adjective

1. Having many hills: a hilly stretch of the coast road.^{[13][4][2][5]}
2. Like a hill; steep: a hilly lane up to the church.^{[13][4][2][5]}

Word family

• hilliness
• unhilly

Related words

• hill
• hillock

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ a b c Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
5. ^ a b c Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ a b c d e 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)
7. ^ a b c Benson, Larry D., Glossarial Concordance to Middle English (Chaucer, Gower), Johns Hopkins University, github.com/jhu-digital-manuscripts/gcme
8. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
9. ^ Bosworth, Joseph; Toller, T. Northcote (1898), An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press; Toller, T. Northcote (1921), Supplement
10. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
11. ^ a b 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)
12. ^ a b Cassidy, Frederic G. & Joan Houston Hall (eds.) (1985–2002), Dictionary of American Regional English, vols I–IV, Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press
13. ^ a b The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (1992), 3rd ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin