Mountains

[Sagaman]

What "regal sounding" name is given to mountains which stand alone, i.e. not part of a designated mountain range?

[Quizmonster]

A monadnock or inselberg. The former is based on a mountain in New Hampshire and the latter is German for 'island mountain'. Is either of these what you are looking for?

[Sagaman]

Thanks, but neither are "regal sounding"

[Clanad]

Monarch...

[Quizmonster]

I could see the 'regal' problem, Sagaman, and even considered Clanad's 'monarch', as 'monadnock' contains the same opening and closing sounds! 

However, of the several meanings offered for 'monarch' by 'TOED', none suggests it means a stand-alone mountain. There is a quote from 1817 which says: "Mont Blanc is the monarch of mountains", but it's hardly a stand-alone one, being in the midst of lots of other Alps. 'Monarch' is just a figurative name for the greatest of anything, as in "Shakespeare is the monarch of dramatists" etc.

Still, I'm sure Clanad is right, so go with that rersponse.

[Sagaman]

I like your reasoning, I'm just not too good on cryptics, thank-you

[Clanad]

I agree, Quizmonster,  monarch would not be my first choice.  However, as a student of geology (many years ago) the professor regularly referred to mountain peaks with pronounced prominence as monarchs and titled them as such in his profuse lecture diagrams.  The term  Prominence, is defined as the vertical rise of a given summit above the lowest contour line that encircles it without enclosing any higher points. Greater prominence gives a peak commensurately greater visual isolation, aloofness, and perceived status; hence monarch.

However, your term monadnock has more validity due to the references found in geologic source material, i.e., see this site:

http://www.geotech.org/survey/geotech/dictiona.html

A typical reference, as you suggest, is found in the description of Long's Peak in the following site:

http://www.rocky.mountain.national-park.com/info.htm

Unfortunately, the requirement for the deffinition to be regal imposes a restriction on literary or editorial liscense...