Etymology
According to Unfinished Tales, Dol Guldur was originally known in Tolkien's fictional language of Sindarin as Amon Lanc ("naked hill", from amon "hill" and lanc "bare" or "naked"). After Sauron came to reside there, it became known instead as Dol Guldur "Hill of Sorcery", acquiring a connotation of corruption and evil. The word dol strictly means "head" but is frequently applied to hills or mountains in Tolkien's work, as in Dol Amroth and Dol Baran. The word guldur signifies "black magic": gûl means "sorcery, magic", from the stem ngol or nólë meaning "long study, lore, knowledge"; and dûr means "dark".
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