knoll

See also: Knoll

English

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /nəʊl/, /nɒl/

  • Audio (Southern England); /nɒl/:

    (file)

• (General American) enPR: nōl, IPA^(key): /noʊl/
• Rhymes: -əʊl, -ɒl

Etymology 1

From Middle English knol, knolle, from Old English cnoll (“summit”), from Proto-Germanic *knudan-, *knudla-, *knulla- (“lump”), possibly related to cnotta.

Related to Old Norse knollr (found only in names of places), Dutch knol (“tuber”), Swedish knöl (“tuber”), Danish knold (“hillock, clod, tuber”) and German Knolle (“bulb”).

Noun

knoll (plural knolls)

1. A small mound or rounded hill.
   • 1813, Walter Scott, “Canto Second”, in Rokeby; a Poem, Edinburgh: […] [F]or John Ballantyne and Co. […]; London: Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown; by James Ballantyne and Co., […], →OCLC, stanza VI, pages 62-63:

     On knoll or hillock rears his crest, / Lonely and huge, the giant oak.

   • 2008 January–February, Matt Bean, “Your cultural calendar: 7 things to look forward to this year”, in Men's Health, volume 23, number 1, →ISSN, page 135:

     In the northern hemisphere, June 21 has the most daylight hours. Pack a picnic—a chilled bottle of Sancerre, cheese, olives, and a nice baguette—and hit the grassy knoll.

2. (oceanography) A rounded, underwater hill with a prominence of less than 1,000 metres, which does not breach the water's surface.

   Coordinate term: seamount

Derived terms

• Brent Knoll
• knoller
• reef knoll

Related terms

• dale
• hill
• rill

Translations

small mound

• Bulgarian: могила (bg) f (mogila), хълмче n (hǎlmče)
• Chinese:

  Mandarin: 小山丘 (xiǎo shānqiū), 小丘 (zh) (xiǎoqiū)

• Dutch: heuvel (nl)
• Esperanto: altaĵeto
• Finnish: kumpare (fi), knööli
• French: monticule (fr) m, tertre (fr) m
• Galician: outeiro (gl) m
• Georgian: ბორცვი (borcvi), გორაკი (goraḳi)
• German: Hügel (de) m, kleiner Hügel m, Hügelchen (de) n, Hubbel (de) m, Anhöhe (de) f, Buckel (de) m, Kopf (de) m
• Hungarian: halom (hu), dombocska (hu)
• Icelandic: hóll (is) m
• Japanese: 小山 (ja) (こやま, koyama)
• Latin: tumulus m
• Maori: upane, karapuke, tapuke
• Norwegian: kolle m
• Plautdietsch: Humpel m
• Polish: pagórek (pl) m
• Portuguese: outeiro (pt) m
• Punjabi: ਟੇਕਰੀ (pa) f (ṭekrī)
• Russian: холм (ru) m (xolm), хо́лмик (ru) m (xólmik), буго́р (ru) m (bugór), бугоро́к (ru) m (bugorók), го́рка (ru) f (górka), приго́рок (ru) m (prigórok), со́пка (ru) f (sópka)
• Spanish: otero (es) m
• Swedish: knalle (sv) c

underwater hill

• Chinese:

  Mandarin: 圓丘 / 圆丘 (zh) (yuánqiū)

Etymology 2

Imitative, or variant of knell.

Noun

knoll (plural knolls)

1. A knell.

Verb

knoll (third-person singular simple present knolls, present participle knolling, simple past and past participle knolled)

1. (transitive) To ring (a bell) mournfully; to knell.
2. (transitive, intransitive) To sound (something) like a bell; to knell.
   • c. 1598–1600 (date written), William Shakespeare, “As You Like It”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act II, scene vii]:

     If ever been where bells have knoll'd to church.

   • 1816 February 13, [Lord Byron], “Parisina”, in The Siege of Corinth. A Poem. Parisina. A Poem, London: […] [T[homas] Davison] for John Murray, […], →OCLC, stanza XV, page 81, lines 394–395:

     For a departed being's soul / The death hymn peals, and the hollow bells knoll: [...]

   • 1842, Alfred Tennyson, “The Gardener’s Daughter; or, The Pictures”, in Poems. […], volume II, London: Edward Moxon, […], →OCLC, page 27:

     [A]ll that night I heard / The heavy clocks knolling the drowsy hours.

3. (transitive) To call (someone, to church) by sounding or making a knell (as a bell, a trumpet, etc).
   • 1851, Charles Mackay, The Mormons, Or Latter-day Saints. With Memoirs of the Life and Death of Joseph Smith, the "American Mohomet", page 206:

     Their office now was to guide the monster choruses and Sunday hymns; and like the trumpets of silver made of a whole piece “for the calling of the assembly, and for the journeying of the camps,” to knoll the people in to church.

   • 1891, Thomas George Bonney, Cathedrals, Abbeys, and Churches of England and Wales: Descriptive, Historical, Pictorial, page 769:

     The parishioners were not, however, to be permanently deprived of this means of grace, and for many a year they have been “knolled to church” by the bells of the Town Hall, a comely building  […]

Etymology 3

Named after Knoll, a furniture fabrication shop, famous for its angular range of designer furniture.

Verb

knoll (third-person singular simple present knolls, present participle knolling, simple past and past participle knolled)

1. To arrange related objects in parallel or at 90 degree angles.

References

• Guus Kroonen, “Reflections on the o/zero-Ablaut in the Germanic Iterative Verbs”, in The Indo-European Verb: Proceedings of the Conference of the Society for Indo-European Studies, Los Angeles, 13-15 September 2010, Wiesbaden: Reichert Verlag, 2012