Pentland

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A range of hills lying south of Edinburgh in Scotland ; a turbulent tidal strait between the northern Scottish mainland and the Orkney islands ; a family name of Scottish origin
2. Upland hills stretching just south-west of Edinburgh ; a rough, fast-moving channel of sea separating northern Scotland from Orkney ; a surname borne by people of Scottish descent
3. The hill range in Scotland's Lothians region near the capital ; the treacherous strait of rough water off Scotland's north coast ; a Scottish family surname

Etymology: The Pentland Hills, the range of hills south of Edinburgh, and the Pentland Firth, the turbulent strait between the Scottish mainland and Orkney, share a name, and the surname comes from the same root. The surname is Scottish and habitational, meaning it was taken from a small place near Edinburgh that bore the name, so the family took its name from the land rather than the other way around. The likeliest explanation for the place name combines Middle English "pent", meaning confined or enclosed, with "land". Another possibility is older: a Cumbric pair, "pant" meaning hollow and "penn" meaning head or summit, joined to "lann", an enclosure. Both readings fit a landscape of high ground and enclosed valleys, and the origin is uncertain, so the name has never been fixed to a single meaning.