Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Adjectives
Etymology
Origin of hilly
1350–1400; Middle English; Old English hyllīc. See hill, -y 1
Explanation
Land that's hilly rises and falls with many hills. The hilly roads in eastern Kansas might surprise you, if you've always imagined the entire state being completely flat. A hilly neighborhood requires walkers to trudge up steep slopes, and a hilly field is a picturesque backdrop for a farmer's exotic sheep to graze in. Anything that's hilly is marked with hills, or mounds of land that are smaller than mountains. The Old English source of both hilly and hill is hyll, from a Proto-Germanic root.
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
The city’s two main components, hilly Buda and flat-as-a-pancake Pest, face each other across the Danube River.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 29, 2026
The white Jaguar I-Paces, equipped with sensors and cameras, have become a common site on the hilly streets of the city and beyond.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 24, 2026
Tarling now wears the white fastest young rider's jersey on stage two, which is a 214.3km hilly race to Manosque in Provence.
From BBC ● Aug. 22, 2026
Residents should "move away from the shore, either by going more than two kilometres inland or by moving up into hilly areas more than 10 meters high," he told local broadcaster Kompas TV.
From Barron's ● Aug. 15, 2026
He lived in New England Ville, a hilly area in the western part of Freetown.
From "A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier" by Ishmael Beah
In hillier areas, landslides destroyed roads and bridges collapsed.
From Reuters ● Sep. 11, 2023
That adds a degree of difficulty for him at the Masters, where the terrain is far hillier than it looks on TV, and the fickle weather can play a role in hastening the fatigue.
From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 4, 2023
At least an inch and a half of rain fell in San Francisco, Sacramento and Los Angeles, while amounts reached 3 to 6 inches in some of the hillier terrain in Northern California.
From Washington Post ● Jan. 4, 2023
The Met Office said: "Some hillier parts, perhaps especially across Lothian and Borders, could perhaps see around 50mm, this falling onto wet ground, increasing the possibility of a few flooding problems."
From BBC ● Sep. 8, 2022
Starting from the sandy southern point, the island grew wider and greener and hillier until it finally jutted up into the rocky cone of the mountain.
From "The Wild Robot" by Peter Brown
Long nature walks are more my speed, so I took the bionic legs on San Francisco’s hilliest trails.
From The Wall Street Journal ● May 21, 2026
Buses will travel on roads that receive regular treatment and that avoid the county’s hilliest areas.
From Seattle Times ● Dec. 22, 2022
One of the deepest subway stations in one of the hilliest parts of New York City is now home to a subterranean hike.
From New York Times ● May 20, 2022
So we called around Los Angeles to find the hilliest course with steep and smooth cartpaths, and found Braemar Country Club.
From Golf Digest ● Mar. 21, 2018
That Boulogne road is one of the hilliest in France, and Susan was a nailer on hills.
From Fanny Goes to War by Pat Beauchamp Washington
Random Word
Spin the wheel and learn a new word!
Get a wordDefinitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
