roche moutonnéen.

Etymology: < French roche moutonnée (1840 or earlier in this sense: see below) < roche rock (see roche n.¹) + moutonnée (1762 or earlier designating a type of wig, 1786 designating hillocks: see below), use as adjective of feminine of past participle of moutonner (of hair) to be wavy or curly (1560 in Middle French), (of the sea) to show small waves (1678), to curl (a person's hair) (1694; < mouton mutton n., the hairstyle, waves, or hillocks being so called on account of their resemblance to the curls in a sheep's fleece). Compare slightly later moutonnée adj.The term is often attributed to Horace-Bénédict de Saussure (1740–99), Swiss physicist and Alpine traveller; compare e.g. quots. 1841¹, 1843. For de Saussure's actual usage compare:1786 H.-B. de Saussure Voyages dans les Alpes II. xlviii. 512–3 Plus loin, derriere le village de Juviana ou Envionne on voit des rochers qui ont une forme que je nomme moutonnée... Les montagnes que je désigne par cette expression sont composées d'un assemblage de têtes arrondies, couvertes quelquefois de bois, mais plus souvent d'herbes, ou tout au plus de broussailles. Ces rondeurs contigues & répétées forment en grand l'effet d'une toison bien fournie, ou de ces perruques que l'on nomme aussi moutonnées. [Further on, behind the village of Juviana or Envionne, rocks can be seen which have a shape which I call moutonnée... The mountains that I designate by this expression consist of a collection of rounded hillocks, sometimes covered with forest, but more often with grasses, or at most with scrubs. These contiguous and repeated round shapes together give the impression of a well-endowed fleece, or of those wigs which are likewise called moutonnées.]