Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun An elongated hill or ridge of glacial drift.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun Same as drum, 2.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun (Geol.) A hill of compact, unstratified, glacial drift or till, usually elongate or oval, with the larger axis parallel to the former local glacial motion.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun An elongated hill or ridge of glacial drift.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun a mound of glacial drift

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[From drum, ridge, from Irish Gaelic druim, back, ridge, from Old Irish.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Irish droim 'back, ridge' + English dim. suffix -lin (variant of -ling)

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Examples

  • But I looked at the rolling drumlin scenery around me, unchanged in generations, and thought that the dangers they would be face would be few.

    Irish Blogs 2009

  • Cook Inlet is level to rolling, with areas of ground moraine and stagnant ice topography, drumlin fields, eskers, and outwash plains.

    Coastal Trough Humid Tayga Province (Bailey) 2009

  • One of the biggest maybe the biggest? drumlin fields on the planet.

    "My hollow shell gives you the finger." Ann Althouse 2009

  • One of the biggest maybe the biggest? drumlin fields on the planet.

    "My hollow shell gives you the finger." Ann Althouse 2009

  • Glacial influences have shaped landform features throughout the region and are particularly evident from the numerous fjords in the southern portion of the region and the drumlin fields (small hills) of Prince of Wales Island.

    Northern Pacific coastal forests 2008

  • De Geer moraines, drumlin fields, transverse moraines and hummocky moraines occur there but do not form archipelagoes.

    Kvarken Archipelago High Coast, Finland and Sweden 2008

  • A lone bank swallow put in an appearance for awhile and then went back to the drumlin to the south.

    Travelin' Shoes 2007

  • A lone bank swallow put in an appearance for awhile and then went back to the drumlin to the south.

    Archive 2007-04-01 2007

  • At the least, I shall go sledding even if it means I have to mar the beautiful snow on our drumlin.

    lazarus Diary Entry lazarus 2003

  • I grew up in an old, creaky New England colonial farmhouse set up on a drumlin.

    random stuff lazarus 2000

Comments

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  • "In Scotland, the natural courses come in three main forms: the linksland courses by the sea, the moorland courses everywhere, and the forested parkland courses of the interior, some involving eskers, drumlins, and lateral moraines, but all the result of various glacial effects."

    "Linksland and Bottle" by John McPhee, in The New Yorker, September 6, 2010, pp 48-49

    September 8, 2010

  • Cute word.

    September 8, 2010