Torpenhow Hill - Wikipedia
Jump to content
Search
Search
Donate
Create account
Log in
Personal tools
Donate
Create account
Log in
Torpenhow Hill
2 languages
한국어<br>Toki pona
Edit links
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Tautological name
Torpenhow Hill (locally /trəˈpɛnə/ trə-PEN-ə) is claimed to be the name of a hill near the village of Torpenhow in Cumbria, England, a name that is tautological. According to an analysis by linguist Darryl Francis and locals, there is no landform formally known as Torpenhow Hill there, either officially or locally,[1] which would make the term an example of a ghost word.
A. D. Mills in his Dictionary of English Place-Names interprets the name as "Ridge of the hill with a rocky peak", giving its etymology as Old English torr, Celtic *penn, and Old English hoh, each of which mean 'hill'.[2] Thus, the name Torpenhow Hill could be interpreted as 'hill-hill-hill Hill'.
In 1688, Thomas Denton stated that Torpenhow Hall and church stand on a 'rising topped hill', which he assumed might have been the source of the name of the village.[3][4] Denton apparently exaggerated the example to a "Torpenhow Hill", which would quadruple the "hill" element, but the existence of a toponym "Torpenhow Hill" is not substantiated.[1]
In 1884, G. L. Fenton proposed the name as an example of "quadruple redundancy" in tautological place name etymologies, i.e. that all four elements of the name might mean "hill".[5]<br>It was used as a convenient example for the nature of loanword adoption by Thomas Comber around 1880.[6]
See also<br>[edit]
List of tautological place names
Cumbrian toponymy
References<br>[edit]
1 2 Francis, Darryl (2003). "The Debunking of Torpenhow Hill". Word Ways. 36 (1): 6–8.
↑ Mills, A. D. (1993). A Dictionary of English Place-Names. Oxford University Press. p. 332. ISBN 978-0-19-283131-6.
↑ English Place Name Society, 1950, The Place-names of Cumberland, p. 326.
↑ Thomas Denton: A Perambulation of Cumberland, 1687–1688, including descriptions of Westmorland, the Isle of Man and Ireland.[page needed]
↑ Fenton, G. L. (12 July 1884). "Torpenhow". Notes and Queries. 6th Series. 10 (237): 25–26.
↑ "...the name thus meaning in reality hill-hill-hill-hill. Fortunately the Normans let it remain, and we are spared from having to call the place 'Torpenhow hill-mount'." Thomas Comber, "The Origin of the English Names of Plants", The Journal of the Bombay Natural History Society, Volume 15 (1904), p. 616.
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Torpenhow_Hill&oldid=1320089573"
Categories: Place name etymologies<br>Phantom geographical features
Hidden categories: Articles with short description<br>Short description is different from Wikidata<br>Use British English from March 2025<br>All Wikipedia articles written in British English<br>Use dmy dates from March 2025<br>Articles containing Old English (ca. 450-1100)-language text<br>Articles containing Proto-Celtic-language text<br>Wikipedia articles needing page number citations from February 2023
Search
Search
Torpenhow Hill
2 languages
Add topic