What does mountaineer mean?
Word: Mountaineer
Part of Speech: Noun
Meaning: Mountaineer means a person who climbs high peaks as a skill or sport.
Word origin: English, from about 1600, when it meant someone who lived on high ground. The climbing sense came later.
How do you spell mountaineer?
Syllables: moun - tain - eer
Tricky part: The last syllable sounds like the word ear, but it is spelt eer. Writing by sound often brings ear or ier instead.
Watch out for: mountainear, mountainier
Memory tip: Picture two climbers roped together near the summit: the two e's near the end of the word stand side by side in the same way.
Mountaineer in a sentence
Example 1: The young mountaineer from Manali packed her rope and boots well before sunrise.
Example 2: A mountaineer needs strong legs, a steady head and plenty of patience.
Example 3: At the guest house in Leh we met a Japanese mountaineer who showed us photographs of the Karakoram.
Fun Fact
The mountaineer Bachendri Pal became the first Indian woman to reach the top of Mount Everest, in May 1984.
Practise the CREST Way
Spellacadabra
Choose the correct option to make a meaningful word:
mount___eer
a) ain
b) ian
c) ein
d) ane
Show answer
a) ain. The letters ain come before the ending, as they do in captain and certain.
Sound Check
In which word is 'ou' pronounced differently?
a) boundary
b) mountaineer
c) council
d) courage
Show answer
d) courage. Courage takes the short u of cup; mountaineer, council and boundary all have the vowel of cow.
Word Champ
In which option are the given words arranged in alphabetical order?
1. mouthful 2. mountaineer 3. mousetrap 4. mounted
a) 2341
b) 4231
c) 2431
d) 2413
Show answer
c) 2431. At the sixth letter, a comes before e, so mountaineer leads mounted; s then comes before t at the fourth letter of the last two.
Word Tally
Score 2 marks for each correctly spelt word. What is the total score?
mountaineer, expidition, summit, altitude, glacier
a) 4
b) 6
c) 8
d) 10
Show answer
c) 8. Only expedition is wrong, as it needs an e after the x, so four words score 2 marks each.
Multiple Choice Questions
1. In which of these places might you meet a mountaineer at work?
a) on a beach in Goa
b) on a glacier in Sikkim
c) in a mall in Pune
d) on a ferry in Kochi
Show answer
b) on a glacier in Sikkim
2. A mountaineer differs from a weekend walker mainly because the mountaineer ___.
a) stays close to the town
b) tackles steep climbs with ropes
c) always travels by jeep
d) walks only on level roads
Show answer
b) tackles steep climbs with ropes
