tor

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English torre, also tor,^[2][3] inherited from Old English torr (“rock, crag”),^{[4][5][2][6][7]} which is generally held to be of Celtic origin.^{[8][5][2][9][6]} The OED notes that the word is frequent in the place names of Cornwall and Devon but is not recorded as an ordinary noun in Cornish tor or Breton; it compares Welsh tŵr, twrr (“heap, pile”), and finds it probably cognate with Scottish Gaelic tòrr (“hill, mound, heap”) and Irish torrán (“heap, hillock”).^[8][6][2][9] The English Place-Name Elements traces the Celtic words, Cornish tor meaning belly among them, to a root meaning "bulge, belly", extended to a bulging hill.^[10] Bosworth–Toller separates this Celtic borrowing from its Old English homonym meaning “tower”, which is from Latin turris,^[11][12] and Etymonline likewise keeps them apart, while noting that the sources disagree on whether the Celts took the word from the Anglo-Saxons or the reverse.^[4] Klein and Weekley, on the other hand, derived tor from the Latin word through the Old English sense "tower".^[3][13]

Earliest recorded meaning

A rock, a rocky outcrop or peak: in Old English it is found only as an element of place names in charters, such as a grant by King Æthelwulf,^[8][10] and once in the Old English Boethius metres for a high mountain.^[10]

Semantic evolution

The word is commonest in the place names of the far South-West, though it also occurs in Sussex, Wiltshire and Gloucestershire, and later in Lancashire and Derbyshire, where it has been explained by the arrival of Cornish miners.^[10] In Middle English it was associated with rocks and crags, as in the Wars of Alexander.^[10] The Cleanness poet (about 1400) seems to have used it for a heavy mass of cloud.^[8] The English Dialect Dictionary records it in Scotland, Northumberland, Staffordshire, Derbyshire, Somerset, Devon and Cornwall, for a high rock, a pile of rocks on a hilltop, or a conical hill, as in Mam Tor and Glastonbury Tor;^[14] in Scotland it was also used from 1794 for an artificial mound or burial mound.^[8]

Timeline

• Old English – in charter place names, a rock or rocky peak.^[8][10]
• c. 1400 – perhaps a heavy mass of cloud (obsolete).^[8]
• 1794 – in Scotland, an artificial mound or burial mound.^[8]

Meanings

Noun

1. A high hill, especially a bare, rocky one; a rocky peak or pinnacle: We climbed the tor to see the whole moor.^[9][2][8]
2. (chiefly southwest England) A large rock or pile of rocks, especially on the top of a hill.^[9][7][14]

Related words

• tower

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
3. ^ a b Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
4. ^ a b Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
5. ^ a b The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
6. ^ a b c Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
7. ^ a b Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
8. ^ a b c d e f g h i Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
9. ^ a b c d Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
10. ^ a b c d e f Smith, A. H. (1956), English Place-Name Elements, 2 vols. (English Place-Name Society 25–26), Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
11. ^ Bosworth, Joseph; Toller, T. Northcote (1898), An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press; Toller, T. Northcote (1921), Supplement
12. ^ Clark Hall, J. R. (1960), A Concise Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, 4th ed., with a supplement by H. D. Meritt, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
13. ^ Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
14. ^ 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)