mote-hilln.
/ˈməʊthɪl/, U.S. /ˈmoʊtˌhɪl/, Scottish English /ˈmothɪl/ Originally and chiefly Scottish. Now historical.
= mote n.2 1.Frequently in place names.
ΘΚΠ
the world > the earth > land > landscape > high land > rising ground or eminence > [noun]
link931
rise1240
motea1300
bentc1405
mote-hill1475
territory1477
height1487
rising1548
raising1572
linch1591
mount1591
swelling1630
up1637
vertex1641
advance1655
ascendant1655
eminency1662
ascent1663
eminence1670
swell1764
elevation1799
embreastment1799
upwith1819
lift1825
salita1910
turtle-back1913
upwarp1917
upslope1920
whaleback1928
society > armed hostility > defence > defensive work(s) > fort or fortified town > [noun] > hill as site of fort
motea1300
mote-hill1475
1475 in W. Fraser Earls of Cromartie (1876) II. 449 [Seised of] the Mot Hyll [and sheriffship thereof].
1599 in G. P. McNeill Exchequer Rolls Scotl. (1908) XXIII. 427 Cum monte casti vocato Mothill.
c1682 J. Ochterlony Acct. Forfar in J. Maidment Spottiswoode Misc. (1844) I. 328 Dundie Law is at the back thereof, ane exceeding high mott hill.
1805 W. Scott Lay of Last Minstrel i. xxv. 25 Dimly he viewed the Moat-hill's mound, Where Druid shades still flitted round.
1834 T. H. Chivers Conrad & Eudora i. i. 15 E'en as a mount above a mote hill stands, So does my mother's love above the childless!
1851 D. Wilson Archæol. & Prehistoric Ann. Scotl. iii. iii. 409 Of the aboriginal strongholds..we have the circumscribed mote-hill or earthen-mound, steeply escarped.
1893 R. O. Heslop Northumberland Words The names at Elsdon, Wark, Haltwhistle, Harbottle, &c., of hills with earthern [sic] ramparts... Assizes were held on the mote-hill at Wark, North Tyndale, in 1279 and in 1293.
1968 F. M. McNeill Silver Bough IV. 57 The village of Carnwath..has a pleasant moorland setting in the uplands of Lanarkshire. At one end of the main street is a mote hill.
This entry has been updated (OED Third Edition, December 2002; most recently modified version published online March 2022).
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n.1475