Mount Everest
Language: English
Part of speech: noun
Pronunciation: ipa: /ˌmaʊnt ˈɛv(ə)ɹɪst/
ipa: /ˌmaʊnt ˈɛv(ə)ɹəst/
Forms: form: Mount Everests
form: Everest
form: Mt Everest
form: Mt. Everest
Etymology: From mount + Everest, coined by the British army officer and Surveyor General of India Andrew Scott Waugh (1810–1878)—originally as Mont Everest—in a paper of March 1, 1856 to the Royal Geographical Society, after his predecessor George Everest (1790–1866): see the quotation. The name Mount Everest was used in a paper on October 27, 1856 by the British naturalist Brian Houghton Hodgson (1800 or 1801 – 1894) and by Sir Roderick Impey Murchison (1792–1871), the President of the Society, at a meeting of the Society on May 11, 1857 at which the two papers were read.
Senses: examples: text: We stand on the colossal peak of King Lear, with Othello on our right hand and Macbeth on our left, the sublime masses of Elizabethan mountain country rolling on every side of us, yet plainly dominated by the extraordinary central cluster of aiguilles on which we have planted ourselves. This triple summit of the later tragedies of [William] Shakespeare forms the Mount Everest of the poetry of the world.
ref: 1907, Edmund Gosse, “The Age of Elizabeth 1560–1610”, in A Short History of Modern English Literature, London: William Heinemann, →OCLC, page 104:
text: After this rather tricky problem let's climb the Mount Everest of all writing problems. I mean, of course, the world-famous, forbidding peak of U.S. income-tax prose.
ref: 1958, Rudolf Flesch, “How to Write Like a Pro”, in A New Way to Better English, Garden City, N.Y.: Dolphin Books, Doubleday & Company, →OCLC, page 102:
text: Personally, as a coach, I always considered the NCAA Tournament to be the Mount Everest of basketball. Just to be asked to climb it was a compliment.
ref: 1983, Al McGuire, “Foreword”, in They Were Number One: A History of the NCAA Basketball Tournament, New York, N.Y.: Leisure Press, →ISBN, page 13:
text: War and Peace is often seen as the Mount Everest of novels. A daunting door-stopper of a tome, at almost 1,500 pages, it is rarely finished.
ref: 2010 January 17, Claire Sawers, “A journey from ballroom to battlefield”, in The Times, London: News UK, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 09 Jul 2021:
text: I lost seven kilos in the heat, but I needed to do it. I had to put myself through the wall to get where I needed to be. This was my Mount Everest. I had to climb it to prove to myself that I could compete at this level. But by gee, it was bloody hard work.
ref: 2011, Max Davidson, quoting Dean Jones, “Dean Jones: ‘Get Me a Real Australian’”, in Fields of Courage: The Bravest Chapters in Sport, London: Abacus, Little, Brown Book Group, published 2012, →ISBN, page 95:
text: Most great book lists concentrate on works of the highest literary or scholarly merit. Think of the Harvard Classics, Harold Bloom's "Western Canon," the Modern Library's selection of "the 100 best novels of the 20th century." Here, the compilers imply, are our cultural masterpieces, the Mount Everests and K2s all literate people should scale in their lifetime.
ref: 2012 June 21, Michael Dirda, “Library of Congress issues list of ‘Books that Shaped America’”, in The Washington Post (Style section), Washington, D.C.: The Washington Post Company, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 06 Jun 2014:
text: Two weeks later, [Alia] Crum was lying awake in bed when his comment came back to her. "If you were climbing Everest, you can imagine it would be cold, and there'd be some nights it would be dark, and you'd be tired," Crum thought. "You'd be pretty miserable. But what did you expect? You're climbing Everest." At that time in her life, finishing her dissertation was her Mount Everest. She wasn't sure she would succeed. But that challenge was important enough to be worth weathering a few cold, dark nights.
ref: 2015, Kelly McGonigal, “A Meaningful Life Is a Stressful Life”, in The Upside of Stress: Why Stress is Good for You (and How to Get Good at It), London: Vermilion, Ebury Publishing, →ISBN, page 86:
text: O[pera]W[ire]: Many see it as the Mount Everest of tenor roles. What made you feel ready to take it on at this moment in your life? And why with ASO [the American Symphony Orchestra]? / R[ussell] T[homas]: It definitely is the Mount Everest of tenor roles!!
ref: 2017 October 4, David Salazar, interviewer, quoting Russell Thomas, “Q & A: Tenor Russell Thomas on His First ‘Otello’ & Historic Met ‘Bohème’”, in OperaWire, archived from the original on 09 Oct 2018:
text: To people of a certain disposition – thrill-seekers, daredevils, folks who never want to taste their food again – the Carolina Reaper is the Mount Everest of foodstuffs. It must be conquered.
ref: 2018 April 12, Tim Carman, “Can a chile pepper really cause an ‘incapacitating’ headache?”, in The Washington Post, Washington, D.C.: The Washington Post Company, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 15 Oct 2022:
text: To get to Newtown Creek, a severely polluted New York City waterway and Superfund site once teeming with oyster beds, the Mohawk artist Alan Michelson wended his way past the detritus of industrial Queens – the garbage haulers, the taco truck parking lots, the Mount Everests of scrap metal and building debris being clawed by construction cranes.
ref: 2021 October 4, Patricia Leigh Brown, “Oyster shoreline at ‘Greater New York’ has a pearl of a message”, in The New York Times (Art & Design section), New York, N.Y.: The New York Times Company, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 04 Oct 2021:
text: Steve Asmussen reached the Mount Everest of horse racing Monday with his North American record 10,000th victory as a professional trainer.
ref: 2023 February 20, Bob Wisener, “Steve Asmussen reaches 10,000 win mark at Oaklawn Racing Casino Resort”, in Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, Little Rock, Ark.: Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, Inc., →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 20 Feb 2023:
synonyms: word: acme
word: apex
word: zenith
word: apogee
word: apotheosis
word: ascendance
word: capstone
word: climax
word: coronation
word: crown
word: culmination
word: Everest
word: extreme
word: fastigium
word: high note
word: high point
word: high tide
word: high-water mark
word: midday
word: outblossom
word: paroxysm
word: perihelion
word: pinnacle
word: summa
word: summit
glosses: An endeavor that is very demanding yet rewarding; also, something which is the highest achievement, challenge, etc.; the epitome, the pinnacle, the ultimate.