Other Word Forms
- hilliness noun
- unhilly adjective
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.
He has started searching out lighter hauls and avoiding hilly routes that guzzle fuel.
From The Wall Street Journal • Mar. 22, 2026
Harris enthusiastically greeted voters who answered their doors, even running up hilly driveways to shake their hands and handing out his personal phone number.
From BBC • Mar. 10, 2026
"The number of customers who want to eat their meat has increased a lot," restaurant owner Koji Suzuki, 71, told AFP in the hilly city of Chichibu near Tokyo.
From Barron's • Dec. 26, 2025
Yes, schools could transport students to quieter streets or hilly areas with running trails, but that would lead to additional costs and there are many schools far away from such areas.
From Los Angeles Times • Dec. 11, 2025
All 9,000 Marines of our first wave were on the beach, ready to move up the steep terraces toward Mount Suribachi and the two airfields on the plateau in the middle of the hilly island.
From "Code Talker: A Novel About the Navajo Marines of World War Two" by Joseph Bruchac
Definitions 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.
