Lammermuir

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A range of upland hills stretching across East Lothian and the Scottish Borders in southeastern Scotland
2. An upland chain of hills in the south-east of Scotland, running through East Lothian and the Borders region
3. The name of a hill range in southeastern Scotland, forming a high moorland ridge between the Tyne valley and the Forth

Etymology: The name is a place name, not a common word, and it describes its landscape plainly. The second element is "moor," from Old English "mor," meaning open, upland ground, the same root that gives modern English its moorland. The first element is most often explained as "lamb," which would make the name something like "lamb moor," a reference to sheep grazing on the high ground. That reading is plausible and widely repeated, but the name's earliest medieval spellings are not conclusive, and some scholars suspect the first part may come from an older, pre-English Brittonic word instead. The Lammermuir Hills stretch across the boundary between East Lothian and the Scottish Borders, and the compound is typical of Scottish place names that pair a descriptive element with a term for open moorland.