Torpenhow Hill (locally /trəˈpɛnə/, trə-PEN-ə) is claimed to be the name of a hill near the village of Torpenhow in Cumbria, England, a name that is tautological. According to an analysis by linguist Darryl Francis and locals, there is no landform formally known as Torpenhow Hill there, either officially or locally,^[1] which would make the term an example of a ghost word.

A.D. Mills in his Dictionary of English Place-Names interprets the name as "Ridge of the hill with a rocky peak", giving its etymology as Old English torr, Celtic *penn, and Old English hoh, each of which mean 'hill'.^[2] Thus, the name 'Torpenhow Hill' could be interpreted as: hill-hill-hill Hill.

In 1688, Thomas Denton stated that Torpenhow Hall and church stand on a 'rising topped hill', which he assumed might have been the source of the name of the village.^[3][4] Denton apparently exaggerated the example to a "Torpenhow Hill", which would quadruple the "hill" element, but the existence of a toponym "Torpenhow Hill" is not substantiated.^[1]

In 1884, G.L. Fenton proposed the name as an example of "quadruple redundancy" in tautological placename etymologies, i.e. that all four elements of the name might mean "hill".^[5] It was used as a convenient example for the nature of loanword adoption by Thomas Comber in c. 1880.^[6]

• List of tautological place names
• Cumbrian toponymy