Rocky Mountains

[rok-ee moun-tnz]

plural noun

1. the chief mountain system in North America, extending from central New Mexico to northern Alaska. Highest peak, Denali, 20,300 feet (6,187 meters).

Rocky Mountains

plural noun

1. the chief mountain system of W North America, extending from British Columbia to New Mexico: forms the Continental Divide. Highest peak: Mount Elbert, 4399 m (14 431 ft). Mount McKinley (6194 m (20 320 ft)), in the Alaska Range, is not strictly part of the Rocky Mountains

Rocky Mountains

1. Major mountain chain of western North America, running from Alaska to Mexico.

Word History and Origins

Origin of Rocky Mountains¹

First recorded in 1800–05; translation of Canadian French les Montagnes des Roches, from Cree asini˙waciya, plural of asini˙waciy, equivalent to asini˙-, combining form of asiniy “stone, rock” + waciy “mountain,” originally referring to the Canadian Rockies

Example Sentences

Exploiting a series of portages linking Lake Michigan and local rivers, they paddled their canoes from Canada’s Atlantic shore to the Gulf of Mexico and as far west as the Rocky Mountains.

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“I couldn’t walk for a week,” after a race in the Rocky Mountains, said Gwen Jacobson, 67, who ran her first Boston Marathon more than a decade ago.

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After a series of dry years, heavy snowpack in the Rocky Mountains in 2023 brought some relief to the depleted reservoirs.

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She asked the audience to close their eyes, place a hand over their hearts and feel the weight of their bodies in the seats and the surrounding Rocky Mountains holding them safe.

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He had constantly been asked by Zerlentes to return to Fort Collins, the former military outpost nestled in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains, and promised he soon would.

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