From Middle English knol, knolle, from Old English cnoll (“summit”), from Proto-Germanic *knudan-, *knudla-, *knulla- (“lump”), possibly related to cnotta.
Related to Old Norse knollr (found only in names of places), Dutch knol (“tuber”), Swedish knöl (“tuber”), Danish knold (“hillock, clod, tuber”) and German Knolle (“bulb”).
Meanings
A small mound or rounded hill.
grassy knoll
In the northern hemisphere, June 21 has the most daylight hours. Pack a picnic—a chilled bottle of Sancerre, cheese, olives, and a nice baguette—and hit the grassy knoll. 2008 January–February, Matt Bean, “Your cultural calendar: 7 things to look forward to this year”, in Men's Health, volume 23, number 1, →ISSN, page 135:
On knoll or hillock rears his crest, / Lonely and huge, the giant oak. 1813, Walter Scott, “Canto Second”, in Rokeby; a Poem, Edinburgh: […] [F]or John Ballantyne and Co. […]; London: Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown; by James Ballantyne and Co., […], →OCLC, stanza VI, pages 62-63:
A rounded, underwater hill with a prominence of less than 1,000 metres, which does not breach the water's surface.
(transitive) To ring (a bell) mournfully; to knell.
(ambitransitive) To sound (something) like a bell; to knell.
[A]ll that night I heard / The heavy clocks knolling the drowsy hours. 1842, Alfred Tennyson, “The Gardener’s Daughter; or, The Pictures”, in Poems. […], volume II, London: Edward Moxon, […], →OCLC, page 27:
For a departed being's soul / The death hymn peals, and the hollow bells knoll: [...] 1816 February 13, [Lord Byron], “Parisina”, in The Siege of Corinth. A Poem. Parisina. A Poem, London: […] [T[homas] Davison] for John Murray, […], →OCLC, stanza XV, page 81, lines 394–395:
If ever been where bells have knoll'd to church. c. 1598–1600 (date written), William Shakespeare, “As You Like It”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act II, scene vii]:
(transitive) To call (someone, to church) by sounding or making a knell (as a bell, a trumpet, etc).
The parishioners were not, however, to be permanently deprived of this means of grace, and for many a year they have been “knolled to church” by the bells of the Town Hall, a comely building […] 1891, Thomas George Bonney, Cathedrals, Abbeys, and Churches of England and Wales: Descriptive, Historical, Pictorial, page 769:
Their office now was to guide the monster choruses and Sunday hymns; and like the trumpets of silver made of a whole piece “for the calling of the assembly, and for the journeying of the camps,” to knoll the people in to church. 1851, Charles Mackay, The Mormons, Or Latter-day Saints. With Memoirs of the Life and Death of Joseph Smith, the "American Mohomet", page 206: