summit
English
Etymology 1
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*upó |
The noun is derived from Late Middle English somet, somete (“head, top”) [and other forms],[1] from Anglo-Norman sumet and Middle French sommet (masculine), somete, sommette (“top of a thing; highest point of a mountain”) (feminine) (modern French sommet), from Old French somet, sommette, from som, sum (“highest point, summit”) + -et (suffix forming diminutive masculine nouns), -ete, -ette (suffix forming diminutive feminine nouns). Som, sum are derived from Latin summum (“top, summit”), a noun use of the neuter of summus (“greatest, highest; top, uppermost”, adjective)[2] (ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *upó (“below, under”) + *-m̥mós, *-tm̥mós (“suffix forming superlative adjectives”)). The modern English spelling was influenced by summity (“height or top of a thing; utmost degree, perfection”) (obsolete).[3]
The verb is derived from the noun.[4]
Pronunciation
- (Received Pronunciation, General American) enPR: sŭmʹĭt, IPA(key): /ˈsʌmɪt/
Audio (GA) (file) - Homophone: summat (in some dialects)
- Rhymes: -ʌmɪt
- Hyphenation: sum‧mit
Noun
summit (plural summits)
- The topmost point or surface of a thing; the apex, the peak.
- Synonyms: acme, (obsolete) summity, zenith; see also Thesaurus:summit
- The highest point of a hill, mountain, or similar geographical feature.
- In summer, it is possible to hike to the summit of Mount Shasta.
- (mathematics) A vertex of a polygon or polyhedron.
- (nautical, rail transport, road transport) The highest point of a canal, railway, road, etc.
- (obsolete)
- (botany) Synonym of anther (“the pollen-bearing part of the stamen of a flower”); also (rare), synonym of stigma (“the sticky part of a flower that receives pollen during pollination”)
- (crystallography, rare) One of the two vertices of a crystal with a rhombohedral shape where the angles of each face are equal; also, the highest point of a crystal with a pyramidal or tetrahedral shape.
- (figurative)
- The highest point of achievement, development, etc., that can be reached; the acme, the pinnacle.
- (politics)
- (archaic) The highest level of political leadership.
- (by extension) An assembly or gathering of the leaders of countries to discuss issues of international significance; also (loosely), an important or high-level gathering or meeting.
- They met for an international summit on environmental issues.
Usage notes
Colloquially, sense 1.1 is used for only the highest point of a mountain, whereas in mountaineering any point that is higher than surrounding points is a summit, such as the South Summit of Mount Everest. These are distinguished by topographic prominence as subsummits (low prominence) or independent summits (high prominence).
Derived terms
Related terms
- summity (obsolete)
Translations
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Verb
summit (third-person singular simple present summits, present participle summiting or summitting, simple past and past participle summited or summitted)
- (transitive, climbing, informal) To reach the summit (noun sense 1.1) of (a mountain).
- 2012 July–August, Kenza Moller, “Eyes on the North”, in Canadian Geographic, volume 132, number 4, Ottawa: Royal Canadian Geographical Society, →ISSN, →OCLC, page 10:
- Of the range's 12 peaks, Mount Saskatchewan is the only one that has yet to be summited.
- (intransitive)
- (climbing, informal) To reach the summit of a mountain.
- (politics) To attend a summit (noun sense 2.2.2).
Translations
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Etymology 2
A variant of summat.
Pronunciation
- (Received Pronunciation, General American) IPA(key): /ˈsʌmɪt/, /ˈsʊ-/
- Rhymes: -ʌmɪt
- Hyphenation: sum‧mit
Pronoun
summit
- (England, especially Lancashire, Yorkshire, informal) Alternative spelling of summat (“something”)
- I need to get summit to eat.
References
- “somet, n.”, in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007.
- “summit, n.”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022.
- “summit, n.”, in OED Online , Oxford, Oxfordshire: Oxford University Press, September 2023.
- “summit, v.2”, in OED Online , Oxford, Oxfordshire: Oxford University Press, July 2023; “summit, v.”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022.
Further reading
- summit on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
- summit (meeting) on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
- summit (disambiguation) on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
Anagrams
Italian
Pronunciation
- IPA(key): /ˈsum.mit/, /ˈsam.mit/[1]
- Rhymes: -ummit, -ammit
- Hyphenation: sùm‧mit
References
- summit in Luciano Canepari, Dizionario di Pronuncia Italiana (DiPI)