Word.ws English Dictionary

have a mountain to climb

have a mountain to climb verb: to face a difficult task or challenge.

Verb

have a mountain to climb (third-person singular simple present has a mountain to climb, present participle having a mountain to climb, simple past and past participle had a mountain to climb)

  1. (idiomatic) To face a difficult task or challenge.
    • The Black Cats had a mountain to climb after James Morrison's header and Shane Long's neat side-foot finish gave Albion a 2-0 lead five minutes in.2011 October 1, Phil Dawkes, “Sunderland 2 - 2 West Brom”, in BBC Sport

Forms of have a mountain to climb

third-person singular presenthas a mountain to climb
present participlehaving a mountain to climb
past participlehad a mountain to climb
pasthad a mountain to climb

Questions about have a mountain to climb

What does have a mountain to climb mean?
Have a mountain to climb means to face a difficult task or challenge.
What part of speech is have a mountain to climb?
Have a mountain to climb is a verb.
What is the past tense of have a mountain to climb?
The past tense of have a mountain to climb is had a mountain to climb.

Words near have a mountain to climb in the dictionary

  1. have a lot of time
  2. have a mind of one's own
  3. have a mind to
  4. have a moment
  5. have a monk on
  6. have a mountain to climb
  7. have a nice day
  8. have a nice day syndrome
  9. have a nice life
  10. have a night of it
  11. have a normal one

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: have a mountain to climb (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-au-have a mountain to climb.ogg.

Cite this entry: “have a mountain to climb.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/have_a_mountain_to_climb. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.