From Middle English hil, from Old English hyll, from Proto-Germanic *hulliz, from Proto-Indo-European *kl̥Hnís (compare also Proto-Germanic *halluz (“stone, rock”)).

Cognate with Middle Dutch hille, hulle ("hill"), Low German hull, Old Norse hóll, Latin collis, Lithuanian kalnas, Albanian kallumë, Russian холм, Old English holm. More at holm.

• enPR: hĭl, IPA: /hɪl/
  • (RP, America) IPA: [hɪɫ]
  • (l-vocalizing:, _, British, Australia, New Zealand) IPA: [hɪo̯], [hɪʊ̯]

hill (plural hills)

1. An elevated landmass smaller than a mountain.

   The park is sheltered from the wind by a hill to the east.

   • 1908, W[illiam] B[lair] M[orton] Ferguson, chapter IV, in Zollenstein, New York, N.Y.: D. Appleton & Company, →OCLC ↗:

     So this was my future home, I thought! […] Backed by towering hills, the but faintly discernible purple line of the French boundary off to the southwest, a sky of palest Gobelin flecked with fat, fleecy little clouds, it in truth looked a dear little city; the city of one's dreams.

2. A sloping road.

   You need to pick up speed to get up the hill that's coming up.

3. (US) A heap of earth surrounding a plant.
4. (US) A single cluster or group of plants growing close together, and having the earth heaped up about them.

   a hill of corn or potatoes

5. (baseball) The pitcher’s mound.
6. The raised portion of the surface of a vinyl record.

   Antonyms: dale

• French: colline
• German: Hügel
• Italian: collina, colle
• Portuguese: colina, morro (large)
• Russian: холм
• Spanish: cerro, loma, colina, collado, alcor

• French: côte
• German: Hang, Steigung
• Russian: (ascending) подъём

• German: Steigung, Anstieg

hill (hills, present participle hilling; simple past and past participle hilled)

1. To form into a heap or mound.
   • 1849, Herman Melville, Mardi: And a Voyage Thither. […], volume II, New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers, publishers, […], →OCLC ↗:

     Spread, heaped up, stacked with good things; and redolent of citrons and grapes, hilling round tall vases of wine;

2. To heap or draw earth around plants.

• German: häufeln

• German: häufeln
• Portuguese: colina

• As an English surname, from the noun hill, shortened from Hilary, and from Old English hild.
• As a German - surname, shortened from Hildebrand, related to the last sense above.
• As a Finnish - surname, calque of Finnish Mäki (“hill”).

• IPA: /hɪl/

1. (US, with "the") Capitol Hill; the US Congress
2. (Canada, with "the") Parliament Hill; the Parliament of Canada; the parliamentary precinct in Ottawa as opposed to parliamentary functions elsewhere in the country
3. Surname for someone who lived on or by a hill.
4. A number of places:
   1. A town in Merrimack County, New Hampshire.
   2. A town in Price County, Wisconsin.
   3. A small village/and/cpar (without a council) in South Gloucestershire (OS grid ref ST6495).
   4. A hamlet in Leamington Hastings, Rugby (OS grid ref SP4567).
   5. A suburb near Four Oaks (OS grid ref SP1199).
   6. A former township in Halesowen, West Midlands, which later became Hill and Cakemore.
   7. A village in Saundersfoot, Pembrokeshire (OS grid ref SN1206).