"publisher's inscription at the end of a book," 1774, from Late Latin colophon, from Greek kolophōn "summit, final touch" (from PIE root *kel- (2) "to be prominent; hill"). "In early times the colophon gave the information now given on the title page" [OED].
c. 1300, mote "a mound, a hill" (a sense now obsolete); late 14c., "ditch or deep trench dug round the rampart of a castle or other fortified place," from Old French mote "mound, hillock, embankment; castle built on a hill" (12c.; Modern French motte) and directly from Medieval Latin mota "mound, fortified height," a word of unknown origin, perhaps from Gaulish mutt, mutta.
The sense shifted in Norman French from the castle mound to the ditch dug around it. For a similar evolution, compare ditch (n.) and dike. As a verb, "to surround with a moat," early 15c. Related: Moated.
capital of Italy; seat of an ancient republic and empire; city of the Papacy, Old English, from Old French Rome, from Latin Roma, a word of uncertain origin. "The original Roma quadrata was the fortified enclosure on the Palatine hill," according to Tucker, who finds "no probability" in derivation from *sreu- "flow," and suggests the name is "most probably" from *urobsma (urbs, robur) and otherwise, "but less likely" from *urosma "hill" (compare Sanskrit varsman- "height, point," Lithuanian viršus "upper"). Another suggestion [Klein] is that it is from Etruscan (compare Rumon, former name of Tiber River).
Common in proverbs, such as Rome was not buylt in one daye (1540s); for when a man doth to Rome come, he must do as there is done (1590s); All roads lead to Rome (1795).
type of early modern human, 1869, named for the rock shelter site at Cro-Magnon, a hill in the Dordogne department near Les Eyzies, France, where several skeletons were found in 1868 and recognized as fossil Homo sapiens. The name is said to be from Occitan cro "cavity" + Magnon, a name of an owner of the land around the shelter.
large city in Lancashire, Mameceastre (1086), from Mamucio (4c.), the original Celtic name, which is perhaps from *mamm "breast, breast-like hill," + Old English ceaster "Roman town" (see Chester). Adjective Mancunian is from the Medieval Latin form of the place-name, Mancunium.
