The Elvish name Cirith Gorgor is universally translated as the 'Haunted Pass', but this is not the name's strictly literal meaning. Gorgor derives from gor, 'dread, horror', here duplicated for emphasis. So, absolutely literally the name means 'Pass of Dread-dread', or more colloquially 'Pass of Great Dread'. The derivation of the name must surely connect it to the Plateau of Gorgoroth, the wasteland of Mordor behind the mountains, to which the pass of Cirith Gorgor led.
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