landgrab

British

/ ˈlændˌɡræb /

noun

informal a sudden attempt to establish ownership of or copyright on something in advance of competitors

"Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged" 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

Etymology

Origin of landgrab

C20: from the competition to stake claims to available land in 19th-century America

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.

But investors appeared to take the read from Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang’s bullish forecast that companies are more focused on winning the AI landgrab than maintaining cost discipline or preserving their balance sheets.

From Barron's • Nov. 21, 2025

Strelkov, a former intelligence officer, played a key role in Russia's 2014 landgrab of Crimea.

From BBC • Jul. 21, 2023

The machines’ encroachment was slow at first, but this year it turned into a landgrab.

From Science Magazine • Dec. 14, 2022

The bureau has also embarked on an online landgrab to control census look-alike websites, according to Census officials.

From Reuters • Mar. 27, 2019

We believe in tonnage, because this is a landgrab.

From The New Yorker • Jan. 11, 2016

Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023