DCHP-3

knap

DCHP-2 (Mar 2014)

Spelling variants:
nap

n. — Newfoundland

a raised portion of land, the crest of a round hill.

Type: 2. Preservation — Derived from the Old English cnæp(p), meaning 'top' or 'summit' (OED-3, s.v. "knap" n.1), knap made its way from the English West Country to Newfoundland, where such preservations are found in Newfoundland English (Clarke 2010b: 6-7).
See also DNE, s.v. "knap" (1).

Quotations

1786
CARTWRIGHT iii, 124 He met with some deer in the vale beyond Burnt Knap, and surrounded them.
1836
[WIX]² 81 These bare spots upon the hills, from which the snow had melted... are called 'naps.'
1890
In the cool of the evening I climbed up a steep wooded ridge on the west side of the valley to a bare knap on the top where I had a full view of the fire and of the surrounding country.
1907
The landscape is open, with rolling hills stretching away to the distant horizon. Here and there are little rocky eminences, locally designated as "knaps," from which miles of country may be easily spied.
1918
Knap, a knoll or protuberance above surrounding land. It appears in Anglo-Saxon as knappe, and in kindred languages as denoting a knob or button, but in old English it denotes "the top of a hill or rising ground," (Wright).
1951
Their stage for this event was a grassy knap with a couple of big rocks and a stumpy leaf tree in the center. It looked an ideal goat park where the can-eaters might rest and chew the cud at sunset after a hard day on the village dumps.
1971
NOSEWORTHY 160 Gravelly Knap -- a small, rocky hill approximately one-half mile south of Maloney's Hill.
1999
knap (n.) a knob; a small, rounded hill standing alone. "How grand it was to stand on the top of the knap and look out over the harbour, after we had picked the biggest blueberries."

References

  • DNE
  • Clarke (2010b)
  • OED-3
    • "knap"