Tors

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A high, rocky hill or peak found in mountainous or moorland areas often formed by weathering and erosion
2. A prominent natural rock outcrop that stands isolated on a hilltop, typically composed of granite or similar hard stone
3. A conspicuous rocky summit or hill characterized by exposed stone and often marking a distinctive landscape feature

Etymology: Tors are the bare granite crowns of Dartmoor and Cornwall, and the word for them is one of the oldest in the English countryside. It goes back through Old English and a Celtic cognate to the Latin "turris", "tower", which itself came from the Greek "túrsis", "tower". So the name of a windswept Dartmoor outcrop is, at root, the same word as a castle keep. The link to towers was not lost on the people who first named these rocks. The Celtic forms, such as Cornish "tor", Welsh "twr" and Scottish Gaelic "tòrr", all mean a tower or a high place, and English speakers seem to have picked up the idea of a lofty pile of stone. Scholars are unsure whether the Celtic words were borrowed from English or the reverse, so the exact direction of travel remains open. The word "tors" is simply the plural of "tor". Its origin in Greek and Latin is non-Indo-European at the earliest stage, and the sense of a rocky summit was a later development rather than a feature of the original word.

Synonyms: rock outcrops, rock formations, hillocks