mountain [ME] The Latin word mons ‘mountain’ was extended in French to create the ancestor of mountain. It is also the source of mount [OE], paramount [M16th] ‘highest’, and amount [ME]. The story behind the proverb if the mountain won’t come to Muhammad, Muhammad must go to the mountain was told in 1625 by the philosopher Francis Bacon. Muhammad was once challenged to prove his credentials as a prophet by summoning Mount Safa to come to him. Inevitably, the mountain did not move in response to his summons, but Muhammad had a ready answer for this. He observed that if the mountain had moved it would have crushed him and all his followers to death. Therefore it was only right that now he should go to the mountain and give thanks to God for his mercy in sparing them all from this disaster. The phrase to move mountains [LME] means both ‘to achieve apparently impossible results’ and ‘to make every effort’. In the first sense it goes back to Paul’s First Epistle to the Corinthians: ‘And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries, and all knowledge; and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not charity, I am nothing.’ The contrast of size between mountains and molehills has been exploited since the late 16th century hence make a mountain out of a molehill.