land

Etymology 1

From Middle English lond, land, from Old English land, from Proto-West Germanic *land, from Proto-Germanic *landą (“land”), from Proto-Indo-European *lendʰ- (“land, heath”). Cognate with Scots laund (“land”), West Frisian lân (“land”), Dutch land (“land, country”), German Land (“land, country, state”), Norwegian and Swedish land (“land, country, shore, territory”), Icelandic land (“land”). Non-Germanic cognates include Old Irish lann (“heath”), Welsh llan (“enclosure”), Breton lann (“heath”), Old Church Slavonic лѧдо (lędo), from Proto-Slavic *lęda (“heath, wasteland”) and Albanian lëndinë (“heath, grassland”).

noun

1. The part of Earth which is not covered by oceans or other bodies of water.
   Most insects live on land.
2. Real estate or landed property; a partitioned and measurable area which is owned and acquired and on which buildings and structures can be built and erected.
   There are 50 acres of land in this estate.
3. A country or region.
   They come from a faraway land.
4. A person's country of origin and/or homeplace; homeland.
5. The soil, in respect to its nature or quality for farming.
   wet land    good or bad land for growing potatoes
6. (often in combination) realm, domain.
   I'm going to Disneyland.
   Maybe that's how it works in TV-land, but not in the real world.
7. (agriculture) The ground left unploughed between furrows; any of several portions into which a field is divided for ploughing.
8. (Ireland, colloquial) A shock or fright.
   He got an awful land when the police arrived.
9. (electronics) A conducting area on a board or chip which can be used for connecting wires.
10. On a compact disc or similar recording medium, an area of the medium which does not have pits.
    Now, assume that the recording is being done with 100 grooves per inch, and that the record groove is .006 inch wide. This means that the land on either side on any given groove in the absence of sound waves is .004 inch. 1935, H. Courtney Bryson, The Gramophone Record, page 72
11. (travel) The non-airline portion of an itinerary. Hotel, tours, cruises, etc.
    Our city offices sell a lot more land than our suburban offices.
12. (obsolete) The ground or floor.
13. (nautical) The lap of the strakes in a clinker-built boat; the lap of plates in an iron vessel; called also landing.
14. In any surface prepared with indentations, perforations, or grooves, that part of the surface which is not so treated, such as the level part of a millstone between the furrows.
    1. (ballistics) The space between the rifling grooves in a gun.
       The FBI maintains a database, the General Rifling Characteristics (GRC) file, which is organized by caliber, number of lands and grooves, direction of twist, and width of lands and grooves, to help an examiner figure out the origin of a recovered bullet. 2008-08-01, Lisa Steele, “Ballistics”, in Eric York Drogin, editor, Science for Lawyers, American Bar Association, page 16
       The human eye is a precision instrument. It can detect grooves and lands on a slug more efficiently than any computer. 2012-11-15, “One Way to Get Off”, in Elementary, season 1, episode 7, spoken by Sherlock Holmes (Jonny Lee Miller)
15. (Scotland, historical) A group of dwellings or tenements under one roof and having a common entry.

verb

1. (intransitive) To descend to a surface, especially from the air.
   The plane is about to land.
2. (dated) To alight, to descend from a vehicle.
   10. You will be civil and attentive to passengers, giving proper assistance to ladies and children getting in or out, and never start the car before passengers are fairly received or landed. 1859, “Rules adopted by the Sixth Avenue Railway, N. Y.”, quoted in Alexander Easton, A Practical Treatise on Street or Horse-Power Railways, page 108
3. (intransitive) To come into rest.
4. (intransitive) To arrive on land, especially a shore or dock, from a body of water.
5. (transitive) To bring to land.
   It can be tricky to land a helicopter.
   Use the net to land the fish.
6. (transitive, informal) To capture or arrest.
   He told me that he was certain that Coates shot at him. We threw out a drag and landed Coates within an hour. June 1920, The Electrical Experimenter, New York, page 151, column 3
7. (transitive) To acquire; to secure.
   As Di Matteo celebrated and captain John Terry raised the trophy for the fourth time, the Italian increased his claims to become the permanent successor to Andre Villas-Boas by landing a trophy. May 5, 2012, Phil McNulty, “Chelsea 2-1 Liverpool”, in BBC Sport
8. (slang, transitive) To succeed in having sexual relations with; to score
   Too ugly to ever land a chick
9. (transitive) (of a blow) To deliver.
   If you land a knockout blow, you’ll win the match
10. (intransitive) (of a punch) To connect
    If the punches land, you might lose a few teeth!
11. (intransitive) To go down well with an audience.
    Some of the comedian's jokes failed to land.

Etymology 2

From Old English hland.

noun

1. lant; urine