landfall

Etymology

It is a compound from English land + fall.^[2][3][4][5] The OED and the Shorter Oxford take the second part as the noun fall,^[2][4] Etymonline as the verb, in the sense "to happen".^[3]

Earliest recorded meaning

An approach to or sighting of land, especially the first on a sea voyage: 1627, in John Smith's Sea Grammar.^[2][6] Etymonline dates it to the 1620s and Dictionary.com to 1620–30.^[3][5]

Semantic evolution

Etymonline calls it a word from the days of imprecise navigation.^[3] Sailors spoke of a good or a bad landfall, meeting land as expected or intended, or not: Moore's New Practical Navigator (1814) defines a land-fall as the first land discovered after a sea voyage.^[3][2][4] From the land sighted the word passed to the land itself, the first land "made" on a voyage (1883),^[2][3] and with flying to arriving at land after a flight over the sea (1908, in H. G. Wells's The War in the Air).^[2] Since about 1932 it has also been used of a hurricane reaching the coast,^[3] and since 1974 of the place where an undersea pipeline comes ashore.^[2][4] A quite different sense, a sudden transfer of landed property by the death of a rich man, was defined by Johnson (1755),^[7][2] and the OED's only later quotation for it is from F. K. Robinson's glossary of 1876.^[2] Ogilvie's dictionary (1882) also recorded it for a landslip.^[2][3] A verb landfall, to make a landfall, appears only in Boyer's Dictionaire Royal of 1727.^[2]

Timeline

• 1627 – an approach to or sighting of land at sea, especially the first on a voyage.^[2][6]
• 1727 – verb, to make a landfall (obsolete).^[2]
• 1876 – an unexpected inheritance of land on the death of a rich man.^[2]
• 1883 – the first land reached on a sea voyage.^[2][3]
• 1908 – an arrival at land after a flight over the sea.^[2]
• 1932 – of a hurricane, reaching the coast.^[3]
• 1974 – the place where an undersea pipeline reaches land.^[2]

Meanings

Noun

1. An arrival at land, or the first sighting of land, after a voyage by sea or a flight over water, especially in make landfall: After nine days at sea the yacht made landfall off Madeira.^[8][6][2]
2. The land first sighted or reached on such a journey.^[8][6][2]
3. The reaching of land by a hurricane or other storm coming in from the sea.^[3]
4. The place where an undersea pipeline comes ashore.^[2][4]
5. An unexpected inheritance of land through the death of a rich person.^[2][4][7]

Related words

• land
• fall
• landing
• landslide
• landslip

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ a b c d e f Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
5. ^ a b Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
6. ^ a b c d Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
7. ^ a b Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
8. ^ a b Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins