mountaineering
Americannoun
Etymology
Origin of mountaineering
First recorded in 1795–1805; mountaineer + -ing 1
Explanation
Mountaineering is another word for the sport of mountain climbing. If high altitudes and low temperatures are your thing, you should take up mountaineering. Climbing in snowy and ice-covered places requires special equipment and extreme care, watching out for dangers like falling ice and rocks, storms, and avalanches. In some parts of the world, mountaineering is called "alpinism." Originally, the noun mountaineer was a seventeenth century word for "mountain dweller." Two hundred years later, it came to mean "mountain climber."
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.
A climbing boom has made mountaineering a lucrative business since Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay Sherpa made the first ascent in 1953.
From Barron's • May 17, 2026
Members of the co-op mainly bought mountaineering equipment imported from Europe.
From The Wall Street Journal • Apr. 15, 2026
Nikita Filippov was the only Russian athlete to win a medal at the Winter Olympics, taking silver in ski mountaineering.
From BBC • Apr. 8, 2026
He was promptly drafted into the Army, but his mountaineering experience led him to be assigned to the Mountain and Cold Weather Training Command in Colorado instead of combat duty in Korea.
From Los Angeles Times • Apr. 8, 2026
It looked like you would have needed mountaineering equipment to climb it.
From "The London Eye Mystery" by Siobhan Dowd
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.
