Word.ws English Dictionary

hill to die on

hill to die on noun: an issue to pursue with a wholehearted conviction or a single-minded focus, with little or no regard to the cost and no intent of equivocation or compromise.

Noun

hill to die on (plural hills to die on)

  1. (idiomatic) An issue to pursue with a wholehearted conviction or a single-minded focus, with little or no regard to the cost and no intent of equivocation or compromise.
    • "I'm sorry, Alisha. I can't overrule the European director's decision to move you out of her arena. This isn't a hill to die on. […]2006, Cate Dermody, The Firebird Deception, Silhouette Books, published 2006, →ISBN, page 113
    • Is correct laundry folding really a hill to die on?2009, Kevin Leman, Under the Sheets: The Secrets to Hot Sex in Your Marriage, Revell, published 2009, →ISBN, page 179

Forms of hill to die on

pluralhills to die on

Origin of hill to die on

An allusion to the instances where a military doggedly pursues a goal or defends a position no matter the cost or (lack of) benefit, typically involving a hill (high ground). Examples include Battle of Hamburger Hill, Battle of Thermopylae, and Last Stand Hill.

Questions about hill to die on

What does hill to die on mean?
Hill to die on means an issue to pursue with a wholehearted conviction or a single-minded focus, with little or no regard to the cost and no intent of equivocation or compromise.
What part of speech is hill to die on?
Hill to die on is a noun.
What is the plural of hill to die on?
The plural of hill to die on is hills to die on.

Words near hill to die on in the dictionary

  1. hill starts
  2. hill station
  3. hill stations
  4. Hill tetrahedra
  5. Hill tetrahedron
  6. hill to die on
  7. Hill Top
  8. hill town
  9. hill towns
  10. hill-billy
  11. hill-fort

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: hill to die on (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-hill to die on.ogg.

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