Mount

Mount has three main meanings.

A old photograph on a decorated mount

Mountain

"Mount" is often used to mean "mountain", as part of a name e.g. Mount Vesuvius, Mount McKinley, Mount Everest.

Mount as a verb

To "mount" something means to put it onto something else.

• An artist mounts his paintings on cardboard. An architect mounts his models on foamcore.
• A camera is mounted on a tripod. A gun is mounted on the deck of a ship.
• A rider mounts a horse. A gymnast mounts the balance beam for a display.
• A male animal mounts a female animal to have sexual intercourse.

Mount as a noun

A "mount" is a thing for mounting something on.

It might be a piece of equipment such as:

• A lens mount for a camera. This is the part of the camera that is made specially so that lenses can be attached.

It might be a piece of stiff flat "backing" such as:

• A mount for a stuffed animal. This is a piece of polished wood that a stuffed animal can be fixed to, for display.
• A picture mount. This is a piece of cardboard which a photograph or other picture is attached to.

It might be an animal:

• "Frederick's mount was a fine black horse, Ernest's mount was a chestnut mare, Clumsy Jack's mount was a skinny old goat."

Mount in computing and software

• Mount (in computing), the process of making a file system accessible
• Mount Unix, the utility in Unix-like operating systems which mounts file systems
• Mount (streaming), a concept used in streaming software programs