Karancs ( sk, Karanč) is the highest peak in the Karancs Hills with an elevation of . It lies on the Hungarian-Slovak border. In Hungary, the mountain forms part of the Karancs-Medves Protected Landscape Area, while in Slovakia it is included in the Cerová vrchovina Protected Landscape Area. The name ''Karancs'' may be derived from the mountain's often dark green (almost black) colour. In Pecheneg and the other

Middle Turkic Middle Turkic (''Türki'' or ''Türkçe'') refers to a phase in the development of the Turkic language family, covering much of the Middle Ages (c. 900–1500 CE). In particular the term is used by linguists to refer to a group of Karluk and Og ...

languages, the word ''kara'' meant 'black', or from qurunçï 'sooty, charred felt'. Another possible etymology is that the word was formed from the toponymic base ''karant'', derived from the

Proto-Celtic Proto-Celtic, or Common Celtic, is the ancestral proto-language of all known Celtic languages, and a descendant of Proto-Indo-European. It is not attested in writing but has been partly Linguistic reconstruction, reconstructed through the compar ...

*''karn-'' and ultimately from the

Proto-Indo-European Proto-Indo-European (PIE) is the reconstructed common ancestor of the Indo-European language family. Its proposed features have been derived by linguistic reconstruction from documented Indo-European languages. No direct record of Proto-Indo-E ...

*''ḱerh₂-'' meaning "highest part of the body, horn", thus "tip, peak". Karancs is a laccolith formed through

volcanic A volcano is a rupture in the crust of a planetary-mass object, such as Earth, that allows hot lava, volcanic ash, and gases to escape from a magma chamber below the surface. On Earth, volcanoes are most often found where tectonic plates a ...

activity in the

Miocene The Miocene ( ) is the first geological epoch of the Neogene Period and extends from about (Ma). The Miocene was named by Scottish geologist Charles Lyell; the name comes from the Greek words (', "less") and (', "new") and means "less recen ...

References

Mountains of Hungary Mountains of the Western Carpathians {{Hungary-geo-stub