Word.ws English Dictionary

sunlit uplands

Syllables: sun·lit up·lands/ˌsʌnlɪt ˈʌpləndz/US/ˌsʌnlɪt ˈʌpləndz/

sunlit uplands noun: a wished-for place or time of happiness and prosperity.

Noun

sunlit uplands pl (plural only)

  1. (UK, figuratively, plural, plural-only) A wished-for place or time of happiness and prosperity.
    • We find in the nation as a whole, the people chosen of God to preserve his name and worship throughout many generations, moving on the sunlit uplands, while the world sat in shadow beneath.1857, Scottish Society for the Conversion of Israel, “To the Jew first”, in The Friend of Israel, volumes III: January 1856 — February 1867, Glasgow: Thomas Murray and Son, page 305
    • A man, to see far, must climb to some height, and I was too much upon the plain in those days to catch even a glimpse of distant sunlit uplands of triumphant achievement that lie beyond the valley of self-sacrifice.1898, Ralph Connor, Black Rock, a Tale of the Selkirks, Toronto: The Westminster Co., page 94
    Synonyms:
    sunny uplands

Synonyms of sunlit uplands

Origin of sunlit uplands

From sunlit (“illuminated by sunlight”) + uplands (“areas in the interior of a country with a generally higher elevation”) (evoking a pleasant, happy place), popularized by its use in the “This was their finest hour” speech delivered by Winston Churchill (1874–1965), the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, to the House of Commons on 18 June 1940: see the quotation.

Questions about sunlit uplands

What does sunlit uplands mean?
Sunlit uplands means a wished-for place or time of happiness and prosperity.
What part of speech is sunlit uplands?
Sunlit uplands is a noun.
How do you pronounce sunlit uplands?
Sunlit uplands is pronounced /ˌsʌnlɪt ˈʌpləndz/ (UK).

Words near sunlit uplands in the dictionary

  1. sunlike
  2. sunlikeness
  3. sunline
  4. sunlines
  5. sunlit
  6. sunlit uplands
  7. sunlounger
  8. sunloungers
  9. sunlust
  10. sunly
  11. sunn

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: sunlit uplands (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.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-sunlit uplands.wav.

Cite this entry: “sunlit uplands.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/sunlit_uplands. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.