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Torpenhow Hill (locally /trəˈpɛnə/, trə-PEN-ə) is claimed to be the name of a hill near the village of Torpenhow in Cumbria, England, a name that is tautological. According to an analysis by linguist Darryl Francis and locals, there is no landform formally known as Torpenhow Hill there, either officially or locally,^[1] which would make the term an example of a ghost word.

A.D. Mills in his Dictionary of English Place-Names interprets the name as "Ridge of the hill with a rocky peak", giving its etymology as Old English torr, Celtic *penn, and Danish hoh.^[2]

In 1688, Thomas Denton stated that Torpenhow Hall and church stand on a 'rising topped hill', which he assumed might have been the source of the name of the village.^[3]^[4] Denton apparently exaggerated the example to a "Torpenhow Hill", which would quadruple the "hill" element, but the existence of a toponym "Torpenhow Hill" is not substantiated.^[1]

In 1884, G.L. Fenton proposed the name as an example of "quadruple redundancy" in tautological placename etymologies, i.e. that all four elements of the name might mean "hill".^[5] It was used as a convenient example for the nature of loanword adoption by Thomas Comber in c. 1880.^[6]

References

^ ^a ^b Francis, Darryl (2003). "The Debunking of Torpenhow Hill". Word Ways. 36 (1): 6–8.
^ Mills, A. D. (1993). A Dictionary of English Place-Names. Oxford University Press. p. 332. ISBN 978-0-19-283131-6.
^ English Place Name Society, 1950, The Place-names of Cumberland, p. 326
^ Thomas Denton: A Perambulation of Cumberland, 1687-8, including descriptions of Westmorland, the Isle of Man and Ireland. ^{[page needed]}
^ Fenton, G. L. (12 July 1884). "Torpenhow". Notes and Queries. 6th Series. 10 (237): 25–26.
^ "the name thus meaning in reality hill-hill-hill-hill. Fortunately the Normans let it remain, and we are spared from having to call the place 'Torpenhow hill-mount'." Thomas Comber, "The Origin of the English Names of Plants", The Journal of the Bombay Natural History Society, Volume 15 (1904), p. 616.