Can you say “bald hill” to mean a hill that has no trees on it?

adjectivesmeaningrussiantranslation

I am translating from Russian to English, and came across the phrase "На краю долины на вершине лысого холма стоит […]" – trying to describe a hill at the edge of a valley. I've never come across "bald hill" anywhere in English. To me, it could be read literally like a hill that has no hair on it, but it could also be quickly parsed to mean a hill that is empty and clear of trees. Would most English readers understand this meaning, or would they laugh at the phrase?

Best Answer

Bald means

with little or no hair on the head (Cambridge)

so metaphorically, it would describe the hill as having no vegetation, not even grass. A hill of solid earth, or a hill after a huge fire that burnt everything. Maybe @Greybeard's suggestion of covered by sheets of rock is plausible, too, though I haven't thought of it when I first read the expression.

As I said in a comment, treeless is more accurate, but does not seem to correspond to the poetic tone I feel in the Russian sentence.

I would go for bare which means:

lacking a natural, usual, or appropriate covering (M-W)

Bare is used even technically to describe treeless hills. There is a book called

Regreening the Bare Hills (about the Tropical Forest Restoration in the Asia-Pacific Region)

Here is a somewhat poetic use of the expression bare hills:

...flowing between bare hills, without a tree or a thicket on its banks... (The Eclectic review)

ADDITION: Thanks to @Kate Bunting's interesting comment, here is an insight in the matter:

Night on Bald Mountain (Russian: Ночь на лысой горе, romanized: Noch′ na lysoy gore), also known as Night on the Bare Mountain, is a series of compositions by Modest Mussorgsky (1839–1881).

Bald Mountain is the most familiar translation of "лысой горе" (lysoy gore) in English, and is also the most literal. The adjective "bald" is commonly used in English place names for barren hills, mountains, and other features, and so is also idiomatic. However, because the most familiar use of "bald" describes hairlessness, this part of the title is also known as "Bare Mountain". The use of "bald" to describe barren landscapes is common in European languages. (Wikipedia)

I agree that bald is closer to barren, whereas bare has a certain vagueness that is welcome in this context.

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