mount

Webster's Dictionary (1913)

Origin: OE. munt, mont, mount, AS. munt, fr. L. mons, montis; cf. L. minae protections, E. eminent, menace: cf. F. mont. Cf. Mount, verb, Mountain, Mont, Monte, Montem.

1. A mass of earth, or earth and rock, rising considerably above the common surface of the surrounding land; a mountain; a high hill; — used always instead of mountain, when put before a proper name; as, Mount Washington; otherwise, chiefly in poetry.

2. A bulwark for offense or defense; a mound. obsolete

Hew ye down trees, and cast a mount against Jerusalem.— Jer. vi. 6.

3. A bank; a fund.

4. Palmistry Any one of seven fleshy prominences in the palm of the hand which are taken as significant of the influence of “planets,” and called the mounts of Jupiter, Mars, Mercury, the Moon, Saturn, the Sun or Apollo, and Venus.

Mount of piety. See Mont de piété.

Origin: OE. mounten, monten, F. monter, fr. L. mons, montis, mountain. See Mount, noun (above).

1. To rise on high; to go up; to be upraised or uplifted; to tower aloft; to ascend; — often with up.

Though Babylon should mount up to heaven.— Jer. li. 53.

The fire of trees and houses mounts on high.— Abraham Cowley

2. To get up on anything, as a platform or scaffold; especially, to seat one's self on a horse for riding.

3. To attain in value; to amount.

Bring then these blessings to a strict account, Make fair deductions, see to what they mount.— Alexander Pope

1. To get upon; to ascend; to climb; as, to mount the pulpit and deliver a sermon.

Shall we mount again the rural throne?— John Dryden

2. To place one's self on, as a horse or other animal, or anything that one sits upon; to bestride.

3. To cause to mount; to put on horseback; to furnish with animals for riding; to furnish with horses. “To mount the Trojan troop.” John Dryden

4. Hence: To put upon anything that sustains and fits for use, as a gun on a carriage, a map or picture on cloth or paper; to prepare for being worn or otherwise used, as a diamond by setting, or a sword blade by adding the hilt, scabbard, etc.; as, to mount a picture or diploma in a frame

5. To raise aloft; to lift on high.

What power is it which mounts my love so high?— William Shakespeare

☞ A fort or ship is said to mount cannon, when it has them arranged for use in or about it.

To mount guard Military, to go on guard; to march on guard; to do duty as a guard. — To mount a play, to prepare and arrange the scenery, furniture, etc., used in the play.

Origin: From Mount, verb

That upon which a person or thing is mounted, especially: (a) A horse.

She had so good a seat and hand, she might be trusted with any mount.— pseud. of Mary Ann

(b) The cardboard or cloth on which a drawing, photograph, or the like is mounted; a mounting.

Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913), from GCIDE 0.54 · with additions: 1913 supplement

Free On-line Dictionary of Computing

<file system> To make a file system available for access.

Unix does this by associating the file system with a directory (the "mount point") within a currently mounted file system. The "root" file system is mounted on the root directory, "/" early in the boot sequence. "mount" is also the Unix command to do this, "unmount" breaks the association.

E.g., "mount attaches a named file system to the file system hierarchy at the pathname location directory [...]" -- Unix manual page mount(8).

File systems are usually mounted either at boot time under control of /etc/rc (or one of its subfiles) or on demand by an automounter daemon.

Other operating systems such as VMS and DOS mount file systems as separate directory hierarchies without any common ancestor or root directory.

Apparently derived from the physical sense of "mount" meaning "attach", as in "head-mounted display", or "set up", as in "always mount a scratch monkey, etc."

Unix manual page: mount(8).

(1997-04-14)