landslip

Etymology

It is formed from English land + slip.^[2][3][4] The American landslide, recorded from 1822, is the usual word in the United States.^[2][3]

Earliest recorded meaning

The sliding down of a mass of land from a mountain or cliff: 1679, in a ballad of the Roxburghe Ballads.^[2][5] Etymonline dates it to the 1670s.^[3]

Semantic evolution

From the start the word named both the movement and the land that had fallen, and it was also used figuratively and attributively.^[2] The OED records the adjectives landslipped and landslippy, marked by landslips, from 1885.^[6] The American landslide, first recorded in a Boston newspaper in 1822 and in Etymonline's dating in 1841, later took the political sense of an overwhelming electoral victory.^[2][3]

Timeline

• 1679 – the sliding down of a mass of land; the land so fallen.^[2][5]
• 1885 – the derived adjectives landslipped and landslippy.^[6]

Meanings

Noun

1. The sliding of a large mass of earth or rock down a mountain, cliff or slope; a landslide: A landslip closed the coast road for a week.^[7][2][5]
2. The mass of land that has fallen in this way.^[2][8][4]

Related words

• landslide
• land
• slip

Usage notes

Landslip is chiefly British; in the United States the usual word is landslide.^[9][7][3]

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ a b 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 Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
6. ^ a b Simpson, J. A.; Weiner, E. S. C., eds. (1989), The Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
7. ^ a b Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
8. ^ The Chambers Dictionary (2014), 13th ed., Edinburgh: Chambers
9. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press