homeland

American  

[hohm-land, -luhnd] / ˈhoʊmˌlænd, -lənd /

noun

• homelands
  plural

1. one's native land.

2. a region created or considered as a state by or for a people of a particular ethnic origin.

   the Palestinian homeland.

3. any of the thirteen racially and ethnically based regions created in South Africa by the South African government as nominally independent tribal ministates to which Black people were formerly assigned.

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homeland British  

/ ˈhəʊmˌlænd /

noun

1. the country in which one lives or was born

2. the official name for a Bantustan

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Other Word Forms

Noun Inflected Forms

• homelands
  plural

Etymology

Origin of homeland

First recorded in 1660–70; home + land

Explanation

A homeland is the country where a group originally comes from, or where a person was born. If your grandparents and great-grandparents are Greek, you might consider Greece your homeland. If you were born in Iran and raised in Canada, it might be important to you to think of Iran as your homeland, or the place you and your ancestors come from. In addition to being your birthplace, your homeland holds a lot of your cultural identity. Sometimes homeland is used in a nationalistic or even racist way, emphasizing that only certain ethnic groups are "native" to a certain country. The Old English root, hamland simply meant "enclosed pasture."

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

homeland homelands

Notice we haven’t even counted Medicaid, or any of the other things the federal government does, from highways and farm support to homeland security, justice and so on.

From MarketWatch ● Oct. 8, 2026

His client fled to his ancestral homeland ahead of a mid-September sentencing date, a move that has become the talk of the state’s political class.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 8, 2026

Hilton is an immigrant from the United Kingdom and is the son of Hungarian immigrants who fled their homeland during a revolution in 1956.

From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 6, 2026

In response, Jewish groups described Zionism as "anti-racism, creating a refuge for Jews in their ancient homeland after millennia of persecution outside it".

From BBC ● Oct. 6, 2026

He hadn’t anticipated how difficult it would be to see his homeland for the first time in so long.

From "Six of Crows" by Leigh Bardugo

Carney is pressing to join the EU’s study-abroad program, as well, hoping a generation of Europeans and Canadians will attend university in each other’s homelands.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 13, 2026

Several hundred miles away, the traditional order in Scotland was turned over in 2007, when the SNP stunned the political establishment by beating Labour in another of its spiritual homelands.

From BBC ● Apr. 25, 2026

The new policy, set by the California Natural Resources Agency, aims to start healing the harm caused by the state’s actions to bar tribes from their homelands and criminalize their cultural and land management practices.

From Los Angeles Times ● Mar. 17, 2026

President David Adeang also floated the possibility of sending the immigrants -- some of whom advocacy groups say are refugees -- back to their homelands.

From Barron's ● Nov. 25, 2025

If your papers were revoked for any reason, you could be deported back to the homelands.

From "Born a Crime: Stories from a South African Childhood" by Trevor Noah

Related Words

• motherland