over the hill
Proposed by a contributor, not yet supported by evidence.
Meaning · English
Past one's peak or prime
Literally: beyond a hill
Where it’s used:
Used
Widespread English
Examples
After a 12-year reign it won't be easy for the Republican workers to start over again.
No it's it's, she was a bit over the hill for it I'm afraid.
British National Corpus sentence via the MAGPIE corpus (CC BY 4.0, retrieved 2026-07-30)
Sources & notes
Listed in Wiktionary’s “English idioms” category (retrieved 2026-07-29); definition pending editorial review. Definition drafted by AI (@cf/meta/llama-3.3-70b-instruct-fp8-fast) and auto-approved by rule on 2026-07-31; pending editor spot-check.
Common questions
What does “over the hill” mean?
Past one's peak or prime Literally: beyond a hill
Is “over the hill” formal or informal?
No register label has been reviewed yet — treat it as neutral and check the usage notes above.