grassland

Etymology

It is formed from English grass + land.^[2][3][4] The OED compares Old Frisian gerslond (West Frisian gerslân), Middle Dutch garslant, gorslant and grāslant (Dutch grasland), Middle Low German graslant, the source of German Grasland (17th century), and Swedish gräsland (16th century).^[2] It notes that the surname of Nicolao de la Garslonde, recorded in Sussex in 1296, implies that the word was current earlier, and compares also Medieval Latin graslonda, recorded as garslonda in 1234, which perhaps meant land to be ploughed by those who held grazing rights.^[2]

Earliest recorded meaning

Land covered with grass or producing it, especially land used for grazing: 1324, in an agreement between John and Robert Druweys from Wiltshire.^[2][5] Other dictionaries date the word much later: Merriam-Webster Unabridged to 1682,^[6] Etymonline to the 1680s,^[3] and Dictionary.com to 1675–85, calling it an Americanism.^[4]

Semantic evolution

The word has kept its basic meaning of land under grass.^[2][3] Etymonline's 17th-century sense is land kept permanently under grass,^[3] and in farming the word still means land given over to grass and other forage plants for grazing and hay, often as part of a crop rotation.^[6][7] The plural grasslands, in the same sense, is recorded from 1787, in a survey quoted in Peacock's glossary of words of Manley and Corringham in Lincolnshire.^[2] In geography and ecology the word came to name land, or a plant community, in which the natural dominant plants are grasses, as on a prairie or savanna.^[6][7][8]

Timeline

• 1324 – land covered with grass, especially pasture.^[2]
• 1682 – farmland occupied chiefly by grasses and other forage plants.^[6][7]
• 1787 – plural grasslands, in the same sense.^[2]

Meanings

Noun

1. Land on which grass or grasslike plants are the dominant vegetation, such as a prairie or meadow; often in the plural: the grasslands of the southern plains.^[8][6][9][2]
2. Farmland kept under grass and other forage plants, used mainly for pasture and hay.^[8][6][7]
3. In ecology, a plant community in which grasses and similar plants are characteristic.^[6][7]

Related words

• grass
• land

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ a b Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
5. ^ Kay, Christian; Roberts, Jane; Samuels, Michael; Wotherspoon, Irené, eds. (2009), Historical Thesaurus of the Oxford English Dictionary, Oxford: Oxford University Press; online edition (2024)
6. ^ a b c d e f g Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
7. ^ a b c d e Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary (2003), 11th ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
8. ^ a b c Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
9. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (1992), 3rd ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin