landfall

American  

[land-fawl] / ˈlændˌfɔl /

noun

1. an approach to or sighting of land.

   The ship will make its landfall at noon tomorrow.

2. the land sighted or reached.

3. a landslide.

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landfall British  

/ ˈlændˌfɔːl /

noun

1. the act of sighting or nearing land, esp from the sea

2. the land sighted or neared

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Etymology

Origin of landfall

First recorded in 1620–30; land + fall

Explanation

Landfall is the first glimpse of land when you're on a boat. It can also mean the moment your boat touches the shore, like when your kayak makes landfall on a remote island. If you're traveling at sea, arriving at your destination is landfall. A child paddling a rowboat across a pond makes landfall when she reaches the far shore, and the captain of an ocean liner makes landfall at each remote stop on the route. A sailor might call out, "Landfall!" at the first sight of land on the horizon. The word landfall uses the sense of fall that means "happen."

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

landfall

In the Carolinas, insurers are pricing the impacts of Hurricane Helene, which made landfall in September 2024, ICE said.

From MarketWatch ● Sep. 9, 2026

“The odds of an actual hurricane landfall from this particular weather setup was, and remains, essentially zero,” UC climate scientist Daniel Swain wrote in a blog post.

From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 3, 2026

Those emissions are making our oceans hotter and our atmosphere able to hold more water, producing the ingredients for a really bad hurricane, no matter where it makes landfall, either Palm Beach or Pittsburgh.

From Salon ● Aug. 28, 2026

It’s a potent cocktail made of Coca-Cola and clear spirits that tavern co-owner Owen Walsh drummed up in honor of the unexpected guest that made landfall a few days ago: a charred spacecraft.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 22, 2026

Shackleton feared that some of the men would die if they didn’t make landfall soon.

From "Shipwreck at the Bottom of the World" by Jennifer Armstrong