adjective
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owning land
landed gentry
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consisting of or including land
a landed estate
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of landed
before 1000; late Middle English ( see land, -ed 3); replacing Old English gelandod (rare), past participle of *landian to endow with land ( -ed 2 )
Explanation
If someone is landed, it means they own property or acreage, and they probably inherited it. In 17th and 18th century England, owners of country estates were known as the landed gentry. This adjective almost always comes before "gentry" or "aristocracy," referring to an entire category of wealthy people. It's a bit old-fashioned, but you can still call use it for upper-class land owners. Your cousin, lucky enough to have the family estate handed down to him, is a member of the landed gentry. Landed can also describe the land itself, when someone inherits it: "The landed property was about fifty acres."
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
The company mostly confirmed guidance as results beat across metrics, including a car margin of 4% that landed in the middle of the full-year range.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 28, 2026
He survived on oatmeal along with fish and squid that landed on the boat.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 28, 2026
Executives on Tuesday further noted that Sprite + Tea had landed in China after showing success in the U.S.
From MarketWatch ● Jul. 28, 2026
Each of the five judges read all the submitted books, with Beard joking she "occasionally felt daunted as a new box of 30 or so gleaming volumes landed on my doorstep".
From BBC ● Jul. 28, 2026
They landed after the sun had set, and when Alex found the little plane that would take her to the island nearest to Nim’s, the pilot said they couldn’t leave until morning.
From "Nim’s Island" by Wendy Orr
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
