A high mountain, especially one of the Alps in Europe, or a high pasture in mountains.
From Latin 'alpis,' possibly from a pre-Indo-European Alpine language. Medieval usage applied specifically to the Alps, then generalized to any high mountain. The root may relate to Celtic or Ligurian languages.
The Alps are so geographically massive and culturally important that 'alp' became one of the few landscape words that traveled backward—from place name to common noun. The Matterhorn, Mont Blanc, and thousands of peaks are all 'alps,' but the Alps themselves are the original.
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