mound

n 1: (in baseball) the slight elevation on which the pitcher

stands [syn: {hill}, {pitcher's mound}]

2: a small natural hill [syn: {knoll}, {hillock}, {hummock}, {hammock}]

3: a collection of objects laid on top of each other [syn: {pile},

{heap}]

4: an artificial heap or bank usually of earth or stones; "they

built small mounds to hide behind" [syn: {hill}]

5: the position on a baseball team of the player who throws the

ball for a batter to try to hit; "he has played every

position except pitcher"; "they have a southpaw on the

mound" [syn: {pitcher}]

v : form into a mound, as of earth

mount

To make a {file system} available for access.

{Unix} does this by associating the file system with a

{directory} (the "mount point") within a currently mounted

file system. The "root" file system is mounted on the {root

directory}, "/" early in the {boot} sequence. "mount" is also

the {Unix} command to do this, "unmount" breaks the

association.

E.g., "mount attaches a named file system to the file system

hierarchy at the pathname location directory [...]" -- {Unix

manual page} mount(8).

File systems are usually mounted either at {boot time} under

control of {/etc/rc} (or one of its subfiles) or on demand by

an {automounter} {daemon}.

Other {operating systems} such as {VMS} and {DOS} mount file

systems as separate directory hierarchies without any common

ancestor or root directory.

Apparently derived from the physical sense of "mount" meaning

"attach", as in "head-mounted display", or "set up", as in

"always mount a {scratch monkey}, etc."

{Unix manual page}: mount(8).

(1997-04-14)