Etymologically
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land

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Pronunciation

  • IPA: /lænd/[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English lond, inherited from Old English land (also lond),[2][3][4] from Proto-Germanic *landą.[3][5] Its cognates include Old Frisian land, Old Saxon land, German Land and Old Norse land,[3][2][4] and Gothic has land.[3][2] Outside Germanic it is related to Old Irish land, “open space”, Welsh llan (“enclosure, church”) and Breton lann (“heath”), the source of French lande (“moor”),[3][5][6][7] which Watkins and Klein trace to Proto-Indo-European *lendh- (“land, heath”).[2][6][8] Boutkan, cited by Etymonline, finds no Indo-European etymology and suspects a substrate word.[2]

Earliest recorded meaning

A part of the earth's surface marked off by natural or political boundaries: Old English land, about 725, in Beowulf;[9][3] ground or soil from about 825,[9] and the solid part of the earth's surface, as opposed to the sea, from about 900.[9]

Semantic evolution

Etymonline concludes from the etymological evidence and Gothic use that the original Germanic sense was “a definite portion of the earth's surface owned by a person or home of a nation”, extended early to the solid surface of the earth, a sense once belonging to earth.[2] In Old English it also meant the country as opposed to the town, and a ridge in a ploughed field.[5] In Scotland, from the 15th century, a land is a building divided into flats.[5] Ground held as property is land in law from the 1620s.[2] How the land lies is a nautical phrase from about 1700.[9] The verb meant “to put ashore” about 1300,[2] “to come ashore” by the late 14th century,[2] and later “to come to a stop” in general.[2] “To catch a fish” and “to win, secure” are later senses,[10] and land a blow is from newspaper accounts of prize fights by 1862.[2]

Timeline

  • c. 725 – a country, territory (Beowulf).[9][3]
  • c. 825 – ground, soil.[9]
  • c. 900 – dry land, as opposed to sea.[9]
  • c. 1300 – verb, to bring ashore.[2]
  • late 14th century – verb, to disembark.[2]
  • 15th century – a tenement building (Scotland).[5]
  • 1620s – land as property in law.[2]
  • c. 1700 – how the land lies.[9]
  • 1862 – land a blow.[2]

Modern meaning

Noun

  1. The solid surface of the earth, as opposed to the sea.
  2. Ground or soil, especially with reference to its use.
  3. A nation or country, or its people.
  4. Landed property; real estate.
  5. An area or realm: the land of the living.
  6. (Scotland) A building divided into tenements.

Verb

  1. To bring or come to shore; to disembark.
  2. To set down or come down on the ground or another surface, as an aircraft.
  3. To arrive or bring to a place or condition: landed in trouble.
  4. To catch and pull in a fish.
  5. To win or secure: land a job.
  6. To deliver a blow.

Word family

  • landless
  • landlessness
  • landlike
  • crash-land
  • reland
  • soft-land
  • landscape
  • island
  • lawn
  • mainland

Usage notes

German Land (plural Länder), a state of Germany or Austria, is recorded in English from 1920.[9][4]

References

  1. ^ Jones, Daniel (2011), Cambridge English Pronouncing Dictionary, 18th ed., ed. Peter Roach, Jane Setter and John Esling, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
  3. ^ a b c d e f g Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
  4. ^ a b c Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
  5. ^ a b c d e Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  6. ^ a b Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
  7. ^ Cresswell, Julia (2021), Oxford Dictionary of Word Origins, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
  8. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (2000), 4th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin
  9. ^ a b c d e f g h i Simpson, J. A.; Weiner, E. S. C., eds. (1989), The Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
  10. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (1992), 3rd ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin