mound1

 
Pronunciation: /maʊnd/

noun

  • 1a rounded mass projecting above a surface: the bushes were little more than vague mounds beneath the snow
  • a small hill: he built his castle high upon the mound
  • a raised mass of earth and stones created for purposes of defence or burial: the dead were cremated, and then buried at the centre of a great mound
  • Baseball a slight elevation from which the pitcher delivers the ball.
  • 2 (a mound of/mounds of) a large pile or quantity of something: a mound of dirty crockery

verb

[with object]
  • 1heap up into a rounded pile: basmati rice was mounded on our plates
  • 2 archaic enclose or fortify with an embankment: a sand-built ridge Of heaped hills that mound the sea

Phrases

take the mound

Baseball (of a pitcher) have a turn at pitching: he took the mound yesterday for the first in time in over a year

Origin:

early 16th century (as a verb in the sense 'enclose with a fence or hedge'): of obscure origin. An early sense of the noun was 'boundary hedge or fence'