badlands

Etymology

It is formed from English bad + land, with the plural -s,^[2][3][4] as a translation of French mauvaises terres (“bad lands”),^[2][3][5][4] which Etymonline describes as a word of the French-Canadian trappers, referring to how hard such country was to cross.^[3] Dictionary.com suggests that the French name may itself be based on expressions in Native American languages.^[4] Hendrickson quotes the “Century Magazine” of 1882, according to which the early voyageurs rendered the Indian name as mauvaises terres pour traverser (“bad lands to cross”), and the term had nothing to do with the quality of the soil.^[6] The OED compares malpais.^[2]

Earliest recorded meaning

Extensive tracts of severely eroded land with rough, rocky terrain and little vegetation, especially the region of this kind in South Dakota and Nebraska: 1850, in Thomas Culbertson's journal of an expedition to the Mauvaises Terres;^[2][3][7] the OED quotes the French name from 1843.^[2] Dictionary.com dates the word to 1850–55 and marks it as an Americanism.^[4]

Semantic evolution

The name first belonged to the arid, eroded regions of the upper Midwest of the United States,^[3][8] and then became a general term in geology for land of this kind.^[7][2] In Canada it was used of the eroded fossil-bearing country of southern Alberta and southwestern Saskatchewan, as in the Drumheller Badlands.^[9] Etymonline finds it applied to city districts of crime and vice from 1892, first with reference to Chicago,^[3] and the OED records a figurative sense, any area full of risk or danger, from 1891, in Andrew Lang.^[2] The singular badland is also used, especially attributively.^[7]

Timeline

• 1850 – severely eroded, barren land, especially in South Dakota and Nebraska.^[2][3][7]
• 1891 – figuratively, an area of risk or danger.^[2]
• 1892 – an urban district of crime and vice, first of Chicago.^[3]
• 1910 – in Canada, of the border lands as a haunt of outlaws.^[9]

Meanings

Noun

1. Barren land cut by erosion into steep ridges, gullies and oddly shaped hills, with little vegetation: Fossil hunters searched the badlands for bones.^[8][7][2]
2. Badlands: the eroded region of this kind in southwestern South Dakota and northwestern Nebraska.^[8][2]
3. In Canada, the eroded, fossil-rich country of southern Alberta and southwestern Saskatchewan.^[9]
4. An area of danger or lawlessness, such as a district of a city given over to crime.^[2][3]

Related words

• bad
• land
• malpais

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ a b c d Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
5. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ Hendrickson, Robert (2008), The Facts on File Encyclopedia of Word and Phrase Origins, 4th ed., New York: Facts on File
7. ^ a b c d e Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
8. ^ a b c The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (1992), 3rd ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin
9. ^ a b c Dollinger, Stefan, ed., A Dictionary of Canadianisms on Historical Principles, 3rd ed. (online), Vancouver: University of British Columbia, dchp.arts.ubc.ca