landman

American  

[land-muhn, -man] / ˈlænd mən, -ˌmæn /

noun

landmen plural

1. landsman.

2. leaseman.

3. a person who bargains with landowners for the mineral rights to their land, as on behalf of an oil company.

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Gender

See -man.

Other Word Forms

Noun Inflected Forms

• landmen
  plural

Etymology

Origin of landman

before 1000; Middle English; Old English landmann. See land, man

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

landman landmen

His character, Tommy Norris, is the titular West Texas landman, an oil-company fixer juggling everything from exploding pump jacks and drug-cartel incursions, to tangled mineral-rights leases and constant family distractions.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Dec. 6, 2025

His father was a landman, someone who secures mineral-rights leases for oil and gas drilling.

From Seattle Times ● Sep. 11, 2019

Hebert’s teammate, Kevin Koe, works full time as a surface landman for an oil and gas company, liaising with landowners and farmers.

From Washington Times ● Feb. 25, 2018

His father was a landman, buying leases from farmers and selling them to oil companies, and his mother oversaw gasoline rationing for several counties during World War II.

From New York Times ● Jan. 20, 2018

The other was William Powell, an Irish landman, who was slightly wounded in the buttock.

From A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels — Volume 10 Arranged in systematic order: Forming a complete history of the origin and progress of navigation, discovery, and commerce, by sea and land, from the earliest ages to the present time. by Kerr, Robert

While some 100 landmen amassed as much land as possible, Comstock started tinkering with techniques to drill more than 3 miles below the surface.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 29, 2025

In some situations, when residents negotiated for better-than-average lease terms, landmen made them sign nondisclosure agreements that legally forbade sharing information.

From Salon ● Sep. 29, 2018

The bad news is I can’t go out and let our landmen loose on the landowners of the world.

From Forbes ● Apr. 7, 2013

Apart from a few fanatics who sometimes turned up at midnight, the landmen would begin arriving at the courthouse around 6 a.m.

From New York Times ● Jan. 31, 2013

The crew of a whale ship usually consists of forty to fifty men, comprising several classes of officers, such as harpooners, boat-steerers, line-managers, &c. together with fore-mastmen, landmen and apprentices.

From Thrilling Narratives of Mutiny, Murder and Piracy A weird series of tales of shipwreck and disaster, from the earliest part of the century to the present time, with accounts of providential escapes and heart-rending fatalities. by Anonymous