Etymology

Mount Everest

Mount Ev·e·rest

Today it means: An endeavor that is very demanding yet rewarding; also, something which is the highest achievement, challenge, etc.; the epitome, the pinnacle, the ultimate. Full definition →

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The story

From mount + Everest, coined by the British army officer and Surveyor General of India Andrew Scott Waugh (1810–1878)—originally as Mont Everest—in a paper of 1 March 1856 to the Royal Geographical Society, after his predecessor George Everest (1790–1866): see the quotation. The name Mount Everest was used in a paper on 27 October 1856 by the British naturalist Brian Houghton Hodgson (1800 or 1801 – 1894) and by Sir Roderick Impey Murchison (1792–1871), the President of the Society, at a meeting of the Society on 11 May 1857 at which the two papers were read.

First known use, by meaning

  • from 1856 A mountain in the Himalayas, on the border of Solukhumbu district, Koshi, Nepal and Tingri County, Shigatse, Tibet Autonomous Region, China; the world's highest mountain above sea level.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.