Tolkien was uniquely placed to influence the vocabulary of modern English. In one sense, he was the last of the Victorians; he did not really live in the Victorian era, but was born at the tail end of it and carried along some of those traditions. Amongst those is a certain sense of propriety and conservatism and, I think, a love for being English; something that seemed to wane after the trauma of the World Wars. He had a deep passion for antiquity and ancient European languages, a love for the aesthetics of language (philology), and care for the natural world. As such, he included many older words we now rarely use to describe geographical features, at least in modern American English, and many plants we may not be familiar with.
With an interest in those words, I've compiled here a list of geographical terms we see in the Lord of the Rings. Enjoy!
Barrow - a tumulus, a large mound of earth or stone placed over a burial site
Bog - Undrained depressions full of peat (moss) and evergreen shrubs
Causeway - a road across a broad body of water or wetland raised up on an embankment
Dale/Dell - valley, vale
Dike - embankment constructed to control water, earthwork, rampart, canal
Dingle- small wooded hollow
Down - hill, typically with a bare top; hilly upland country
Eyot - small island in a river or lake
Fen - Marsh; A habitat composed of woodland and swamp.
Firth - long, narrow estuary
Fosse - Ditch or moat
Freshet - a freshwater stream flowing into the sea
Glen - Small, narrow, secluded valley
Gore - a triangular tract of land, especially one lying between larger divisions.
Heath - tract of open and uncultivated land; wasteland overgrown with shrubs.
Heather - any of various heaths having small, pinkish-purple flowers.
Hythe - port, small haven
Marsh - Treeless wetlands with tall grass/sedge/cattail growth
Mead - archaic word for meadow
Mere - a small often deep body of water
Promontory - A high point of land extending into a body of water, headland; cliff
Sedge - Cyperaceae family of flowering plants, resembling grasses or rushes
Sloe - "Blackthorn" plant; Prunus spinosa; a large deciduous shrub
Swamp - Wetlands characterized by the presence of trees in mucky soil
Sward - a stretch of turf; a growth of grass.
Tussock - tuft, cluster of grass
Whin - any thorny or prickly shrub
Wold - treeless rolling high plain
With an interest in those words, I've compiled here a list of geographical terms we see in the Lord of the Rings. Enjoy!
Barrow - a tumulus, a large mound of earth or stone placed over a burial site
Bog - Undrained depressions full of peat (moss) and evergreen shrubs
Causeway - a road across a broad body of water or wetland raised up on an embankment
Dale/Dell - valley, vale
Dike - embankment constructed to control water, earthwork, rampart, canal
Dingle- small wooded hollow
Down - hill, typically with a bare top; hilly upland country
Eyot - small island in a river or lake
Fen - Marsh; A habitat composed of woodland and swamp.
Firth - long, narrow estuary
Fosse - Ditch or moat
Freshet - a freshwater stream flowing into the sea
Glen - Small, narrow, secluded valley
Gore - a triangular tract of land, especially one lying between larger divisions.
Heath - tract of open and uncultivated land; wasteland overgrown with shrubs.
Heather - any of various heaths having small, pinkish-purple flowers.
Hythe - port, small haven
Marsh - Treeless wetlands with tall grass/sedge/cattail growth
Mead - archaic word for meadow
Mere - a small often deep body of water
Promontory - A high point of land extending into a body of water, headland; cliff
Sedge - Cyperaceae family of flowering plants, resembling grasses or rushes
Sloe - "Blackthorn" plant; Prunus spinosa; a large deciduous shrub
Swamp - Wetlands characterized by the presence of trees in mucky soil
Sward - a stretch of turf; a growth of grass.
Tussock - tuft, cluster of grass
Whin - any thorny or prickly shrub
Wold - treeless rolling high plain
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