Huntingdon

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A market town in the English county of Cambridgeshire ; a small borough in central Pennsylvania in the United States
2. An English town on the River Great Ouse in Cambridgeshire ; a small community in central Pennsylvania in the United States
3. A historic market town in eastern England ; a borough in the state of Pennsylvania that serves as a county seat

Etymology: Huntingdon is a town in Cambridgeshire, England, whose name is a plain record of how it was described over a thousand years ago. Its Old English form, Huntandūn, was built from "hunta", meaning "hunter", and "dūn", meaning "hill" or "mountain". The name therefore points to a hill where hunters gathered or hunted, and it reads much like the many English place names ending in "-don" that describe a hilltop or an upland. The name stayed largely intact as the language changed, so the modern spelling still shows the old pieces. The hunting connection is the essential meaning, and the town's name is one of the few English place names that announces its original purpose so openly.