We’ve already covered mountains—montagne—in a previous article, but what about their smaller, humbler cousins? In Italian, the word for hill is collina.
collina
hill
According to Devoto-Oli, the feminine noun collina comes from Late Latin collina, which is the feminine form of the adjective derived from collis (meaning “hill” in Latin).
A possible synonym for collina is colle but there are some differences in their usage. Collina is the more general term for hill in Italian, while colle refers to smaller hills that are located within a city (e.g. il Colle Oppio in Rome), hills in historical place names derived from topographical features (e.g. il Colle del Gran San Bernardo), and hills that appear in poetry or literature. It’s important to note that in place names, the English translation is often pass / mountain pass rather than hill. A couple of good examples include Colle della Lombarda and Colle dell’Agnello.
Collina can also refer to a hilly region, which is why you’ll often hear people say they are heading to or staying in collina (in the hills or literally “in hill”) for their holidays.
Mi piace fare una passeggiata in collina la domenica.
I like going for a walk in the hills on Sundays.
Of course, the actual plural of collina is colline, and this is used when referring to a countable number of hills rather than a region that is hilly. Here are the definite and indefinite articles it takes:
- la collina = the hill
- una collina = a hill
- le colline = the hills
- delle colline = some hills
If you want to describe yourself as being at the top of the hill, you can say in cima alla collina, whereas at the bottom of the hill translates as in fondo alla collina.
La casa si trova in cima alla collina e gode di una vista mozzafiato.
The house sits atop the hill and offers a breathtaking view.
So, what sets a collina apart from a montagna? According to the U.S. Geological Survey, there’s no official distinction between the two. However, both the United Kingdom and the United States once defined hills as landforms with summits lower than 1,000 feet. This classification has since been abandoned however.
Before wrapping up this article, it’s worth mentioning the diminutive collinetta, which refers to a small hill, and the adjective collinare, meaning hilly.
Ho fatto una foto del paesaggio collinare.
I took a photo of the hilly landscape.
Heather Broster is a graduate with honours in linguistics from the University of Western Ontario. She is an aspiring polyglot, proficient in English and Italian, as well as Japanese, Welsh, and French to varying degrees of fluency. Originally from Toronto, Heather has resided in various countries, notably Italy for a period of six years. Her primary focus lies in the fields of language acquisition, education, and bilingual instruction.
