etymonline cites it as an English dialectal word from 1809 http://etymonline.com/index.php?term=hike http://etymonline.com/index.php?term=hike Almost all Amer

etymonline cites it as an English dialectal word from 1809 http://etymonline.com/index.php?term=hike http://etymonline.com/index.php?term=hike Almost all American English words are originally of English origin, of course ;) However, Google Ngrams shows that the term "hiking" was very rare prior to about 1920, and the large majority of 1920s sources are American. https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=hiking&year_start=1800&year_end=2000&corpus=15&smoothing=3&share=&direct_url=t1%3B%2Chiking%3B%2Cc0 https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=hiking&year_st... Compare hiking, hill walking, tramping, and rambling: https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=hiking%2Chill+walking%2Ctramping%2C+rambling&year_start=1800&year_end=2000&corpus=15&smoothing=3&share=&direct_url=t1%3B%2Chiking%3B%2Cc0%3B.t1%3B%2Chill%20walking%3B%2Cc0%3B.t1%3B%2Ctramping%3B%2Cc0%3B.t1%3B%2Crambling%3B%2Cc0 https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=hiking%2Chill+...