mound

¹ American  

[maund] / maʊnd /

noun

1. a natural elevation of earth; a hillock or knoll.

2. an artificial elevation of earth, as for a defense work or a dam or barrier; an embankment.

3. a heap or raised mass.

   a mound of papers;

   a mound of hay.

4. Baseball. the slightly raised ground from which the pitcher delivers the ball.

5. an elevation formed of earth, sand, stones, etc., especially over a grave or ruins.

6. a tumulus or other raised work of earth dating from a prehistoric or long-past period.

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verb (used with object)

• mounds,
  present (3rd person singular)
• mounded,
  past participle,  past
• mounding
  present participle

1. to form into a mound; heap up.

2. to furnish with a mound of earth, as for a defense.

mound ² American  

[maund] / maʊnd /

noun

1. a globe topped with a cross that symbolizes power and constitutes part of the regalia of an English sovereign.

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mound ¹ British  

/ maʊnd /

noun

1. a raised mass of earth, debris, etc

2. any heap or pile

   a mound of washing

3. a small natural hill

4. archaeol another word for barrow 2

5. an artificial ridge of earth, stone, etc, as used for defence

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verb

1. (often foll by up) to gather into a mound; heap

2. (tr) to cover or surround with a mound

   to mound a grave

mound ² British  

/ maʊnd /

noun

1. heraldry a rare word for orb

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Other Word Forms

Derived Forms

• unmounded
  adjective

Inflected Forms

Participles

• mounding
  present
• mounded
  past

Conjugated Forms

Present

• mound
  simple
• mounds
  simple
• have mounded
  perfect
• has mounded
  perfect
• am mounding
  progressive
• are mounding
  progressive
• is mounding
  progressive
• have been mounding
  perfect progressive
• has been mounding
  perfect progressive

Past

• mounded
  simple
• had mounded
  perfect
• was mounding
  progressive
• were mounding
  progressive
• had been mounding
  perfect progressive

Future

• will mound
  simple
• will have mounded
  perfect
• will be mounding
  progressive
• will have been mounding
  perfect progressive

Etymology

Origin of mound¹

First recorded in 1505–15; of obscure origin; noun “hedge or fence used as a boundary or protection,” verb “to enclose with a fence”; compare Old English mund “hand,” hence “protection, protector”; cognate with Old Norse mund “hand,” Middle Dutch mond “protection”

Origin of mound²

First recorded in 1250–1300; Middle English mounde, mundie, from Old French monde, munde, from Latin mundus “world”

Explanation

A mound is a heap or a pile of material or objects. You can make a mound of clothes by dumping your laundry onto your bed. The noun mound is occasionally used to mean "a hill," but it most often describes a manmade pile, like a mound of stones or a mound of sand heaped on the beach, or a mound of snow that you sculpt into a rabbit. On a baseball diamond, the pitcher's mound is the little rise on which the pitcher stands to throw the ball. As a verb, mound means to pile something into a heaped shape.

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

mound mounds mounded mounding

In an age of short stints on the mound, the franchise hopes that trusting its starters to go long can lead them to a first championship since 2009.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 1, 2026

But he only made 14 starts on the mound before injuries limited him to hitting.

From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 27, 2026

It is hard to make much of Richard Long’s “Battery Park,” a photograph of a rectangular trench and a sod-covered mound that the artist constructed in Lower Manhattan in 1969.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 23, 2026

MLB teams are using position players on the mound more than ever before, transforming what was once a novelty into a common—and controversial—strategy.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 16, 2026

He stopped wiggling, and another mound rose up.

From Anya and the Dragon by Sofiya Pasternack

At a gleaming new factory in China's central hinterland, masked workers in white uniform season and sift through mounds of latiao, a longtime popular snack that has found hungry fans overseas.

From Barron's ● Aug. 14, 2026

Thanks to four years as vice president and two presidential bids, her name identification is universal, and she has demonstrated the ability to raise mounds of money.

From Salon ● Jul. 27, 2026

Business executives quite properly have taken these pledges with mounds of salt.

From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 13, 2026

“Cathedral termites in Australia,” Mr. Huling writes, “build mounds more than 15 feet tall, which, relative to their individual size, makes their buildings significantly larger than humanity’s tallest skyscraper is to us.”

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 19, 2026

In places there were ruined works of stone beside the path, and mounds of green topped with slender birches, or fir-trees sighing in the wind.

From "The Fellowship of the Ring" by J.R.R. Tolkien

In the past, they had mounded earth on top of existing graves to create new burial sites, or narrowed existing paths to create more cremation spots.

From New York Times ● Jan. 19, 2024

In addition to identifying forts similar to the walled fortresses Poidebard found, the team identified forts with interior architecture features and ones built around a mounded citadel.

From Science Daily ● Oct. 27, 2023

In the distance, a Boswell crew with earth-movers was building a levee, a rising barrier of mounded dirt.

From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 28, 2023

Goguryeo’s elites also learned from the Chinese the art of adorning their large, mounded tombs with colorful murals depicting the lives of royals surrounded by dancers, servants, and enslaved people.

From Textbooks ● Apr. 19, 2023

She was among friends—a half-dozen Japanese girls squatting in the rows together, their faces shrouded by straw hats—and would not acknowledge that she knew him when he passed her with his own flat mounded high.

From "Snow Falling on Cedars: A Novel" by David Guterson

Taste and season with salt and pepper, then transfer to a platter, mounding it to one side.

From Washington Times ● Jun. 14, 2023

But radar satellites that measure ocean height can also find them, by looking for subtle signs of seawater mounding above a hidden seamount, tugged by its gravity.

From Science Magazine ● Apr. 18, 2023

A mounding shrub with a modest suckering habit, the plant produces deliciously fragrant pink or white blooms in summer against pristine foliage, followed by a showy crop of bright red hips in fall.

From Seattle Times ● Aug. 27, 2022

Using a towel or oven mitt, holding each skin steady on the pan, spoon the mixture into the skins, mounding slightly at the center.

From Washington Post ● Jun. 9, 2022

They gathered the silver to them, mounding it around, piling it high.

From "Ship Breaker" by Paolo Bacigalupi