ḱelh₁-
“to rise, to be elevated”rise, hill, summit
Root for rising/elevation, yielding Latin collis (hill), columna (column), English hill.
Discussion
The PIE root *ḱelh₁- (to rise, to be elevated, to project upward) produced reflexes across the major branches that preserve the original image of upward extension — hills, columns, summits, and the concept of excelling (literally rising above).
Latin collis (hill) continues the root directly and survives in English hill-related vocabulary, though hill itself comes from a different Germanic root. More productively, Latin columna (column, pillar — that which rises up) gave English column, colonnade, and colonel (originally the leader of a column of soldiers, with the spelling reflecting Italian colonnello). The related Latin forms culmen (summit, peak — whence culminate, "to reach the highest point") and excellere (to rise above, whence excel, excellent, excelsior) extend the family into abstract territory: to excel is, etymologically, to rise higher than others.
Greek kolōnós (κολωνός, "hill, mound") preserves the root with the expected Greek treatment. The place name Kolonos (the hill in Athens where Sophocles set Oedipus at Colonus) is a toponym from this root. The related Greek kolophṓn (summit, finishing touch) gave English colophon (the publisher's mark at the end/summit of a book) and the city name Colophon in Asia Minor.
The Germanic branch shows the root in Old English hyll (hill), Old Norse hóll (hill, mound), and the proper name Holmr (raised ground in a marsh). Lithuanian kalnas (mountain) and Latvian kalns (mountain) provide the Baltic reflexes, preserving the palatal *ḱ as k (the expected treatment in Baltic).
Sanskrit śilā (rock, crag — that which rises up) shows the satem treatment of the initial palatal: PIE *ḱ > Sanskrit ś. The Vedic forms confirm the root's presence in the Indo-Iranian branch, though the "rock" sense represents a slight narrowing from the original "rising/elevated" meaning.
The semantic development from "rise" to "excel" is one of the clearest examples of spatial metaphor in the IE vocabulary. Height equals superiority: to be elevated is to be better, to culminate is to reach the highest point of achievement, to be excellent is to stand above. This metaphorical equation of physical height with social or moral rank pervades IE languages and may reflect a PIE conceptual structure in which up = good and down = bad — a spatial value system preserved in English expressions like "high standards," "low behaviour," "the heights of achievement," and "the depths of depravity."
Notes
Pokorny 544. English column, culminate, excel.