landward

Etymology

land + -ward

adj

1. Located, facing or moving in the direction of the land, as opposed to the sea.
   […] the enclosure in which Bulan resided lay on a landward slope a quarter of a mile from the shore, and so divided from it by lofty trees, that, unless when the inhabitants sought the coast for fishing, they took little heed of what was passing at sea. 1849, Catherine Gore, chapter 8, in Adventures in Borneo: A Tale of Shipwreck, London: Henry Colburn, page 205
   Ninefold deep to the top of the dykes the galloping breakers stride, And their overcarried spray is a sea—a sea on the landward side. 1903, Rudyard Kipling, “The Dykes”, in The Five Nations, New York: Doubleday, page 25
   So, when the landward breeze winds up from the quickening sea, And leaves quiver of a sudden and life is here and the day, You shall fade away and pass As—when we breathed upon your mirror’s glass— Our faces died away. 1907, Ford Madox Ford, “A Sequence”, in From Inland, and Other Poems, London: Alston Rivers, page xxiii
   […] further research will be required to assess “just how much of a difference for potential ground shaking in Victoria, Vancouver, Seattle, etc., may result from an approximately 50-km landward shift” of the expected impact zone. 3 August 2012, Randy Boswell, “‘The clock is ticking’: ‘Megathrust’ West coast earthquake could resemble Japan’s, studies say”, in National Post
2. (Scotland) Of the country as opposed to the city, rural; agricultural.
   […] they recommend to all ministers within the bounds, magistrates of towns, and heritors of landward parishes, to exert themselves, and use every prudent and reasonable method in getting their respective congregations to be taught properly, as occasion shall offer. 1755 October, The Scots Magazine, volume 17, page 512
   1790, John Naismith, Thoughts on Various Objects of Industry Pursued in Scotland, Edinburgh: self-published, Book III, Chapter 2, pp. 331-332, Hence we may see the weakness and absurdity of that kind of jealousy and aversion which seems to subsist between the landward and manufacturing classes of people.
   “I do not mean to offend,” said I. “I have no skill of city manners; I never before this day set foot inside the doors of Edinburgh. Take me for a country lad—it’s what I am; and I would rather I told you than you found it out.” ¶ “Indeed, it will be a very unusual thing for strangers to be speaking to each other on the causeway,” she replied. “But if you are landward bred it will be different. I am as landward as yourself; I am Highland, as you see, and think myself the farther from my home.” 1893, Robert Louis Stevenson, Catriona, Chapter

adv

1. Toward the land.
   The seamen furl the canvas, strike the mast, Then dip their nimble oars, and landward haste. 1718, Nicholas Rowe, Lucan’s Pharsalia Translated into English Verse, 2nd edition, London: J. Tonson, published 1722, Volume I, Book III, lines 73-74, p. 122
   The intertidal mud or sand flat habitat is continuous with many other habitats. Landward, it may be bordered by a beach, marsh, bulkhead, or stretch of riprap. 1984, Alice Jane Lippson, Robert L. Lippson, chapter 3, in Life in the Chesapeake Bay, 2nd edition, Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, published 1997, page 50
   2014, “Is Australia responsible for asylum seekers detained on Manus Island?” ABC News, 27 February, 2014, “The position of successive Australian Governments has been that the Refugees Convention only applies to persons within Australia’s territorial boundaries (that is, landward of the outer limits of the territorial sea),” the report said.

noun

1. The side facing land.
   The Generall then being at supper, and hearing that call, and looking out to landward, sawe those savage people comming after [Fernan Veloso], and presently imagined they meant him harme, and therefore forthwith he commaunded the whole to put themselves in battaile araye, and he himselfe with certaine others, went to landward without anye weapons, deeming verely that those blacke men meant him no harme, nor would offer annye force […] 1582, chapter 2, in Nicholas Lichefield, transl., The First Booke of the Historie of the Discoverie and Conquest of the East Indias […] set foorth in the Portingale language by Hernan Lopes de Castaneda, London: Thomas East
   The Town is large, containing about five hundred well-built Houses, built with Dutch-Brick, and the meanest not valued under one hundred Pounds; to the landward it is encompassed with a Wall of a good thickness, and fortified at the entrance of the River, so as to command any Ship which passeth that way, by a Fort, called James-Fort […] 1687, Richard Blome, “A Description of New-York”, in The Present State of His Majesties Isles and Territories in America, London: D. Newman, page 203
   He sailed along, still northward, day after day; several important people joined him; but the news from landward grew daily more ominous […] 1875, Thomas Carlyle, chapter 10, in The Early Kings of Norway, London: Chapman & Hall, page 139
   Rude and bare hills embraced the inlet upon either hand; it was enclosed to the landward by a bulk of shattered mountains. 1896, Robert Louis Stevenson, In the South Seas, Part 1, Chapter 1