 The expression "don't make a mountain out of a molehill" (which means "exaggerating problems") was first recorded in Tudor times.By the era of Early Modern English, the mole was also known in English as "mouldywarp", a word having cognates in other Germanic languages such as German ("Maulwurf"), and Danish, Norwegian, Swedish and Icelandic ("muldvarp", "mullvad", "moldvarpa"), where the "muld/mull/mold" part of the word means soil and the "varp/vad/varpa" part means throw, hence "one who throws soil" or "dirt tosser".Male moles are called "boars", females are called "sows".