DCHP-1 Online

hummock hammock, hommock, etc. [< older hammock a hill or knoll, often wooded, standing apart]

• 1 n. Obs. a small stand of trees, usually one surrounded by prairie, barrens, etc.

  See also: bluff (def. 3a)  

  • This term, displaced by bluff in the West, was in general use among the fur traders and explorers and seems to have survived longest among their half-breed descendents. See 1858 quote.

  • 1717  (1932)  He was once Actually within 8 or 9 Leagues of the Factory . . . up as farr as the Eastermost hammock of the Woods.
  • 1754  (1907)  Ridgg land with hommocks of wood and creeks.
  • 1786  (1916)  Our road lay through . . . fine short grass and hummocks, or islands of wood, almost wholly of Aspin. . . .
  • 1827  (1912)  [He] tried to escape by running across a small plain to shelter . . . in a hammock of woods. . . .
  • 1858  (1860)  Small "hummocks" of aspen [Footnote: A half-breed expression].

• 2 n. See quotes.

  See also: ice hummock  hummock(ed) ice  

  • 1850  (1851)  A Hummock is a protuberance raised upon any plain of ice above the common level. Hummocks are likewise formed by pieces of ice mutually crushing each other, the wreck being heaped upon one or both of them.
  • 1883  The whole mass opens and expands and then the broken fragments are dashed against one another with resistless violence, and piled on each other, forming "hummocks" or hills of ice.
  • 1934  While the geese are getting gravel, they appoint sentries to be on the lookout for danger. These sentries are posted on hummocks or rocks.
  • 1958  Hummock--Hard remnants of old ridges usually snow-covered and slightly rounded.

• 3 n. See niggerhead (def. 2).

  See also: niggerhead (def. 2)  

  • 1931  Moss stands in waist-high hummocks, around which detours must be made.