landsman
1 Americannoun
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Also a person who lives or works on land.
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an inexperienced sailor or one who has not been to sea before.
noun
noun
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a person who works or lives on land, as distinguished from a seaman
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a person with no experience at sea
noun
Gender
See -man.
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of landsman
before 1000 for sense “native”; Middle English landes man, londes man, Old English landes mann; see land, 's 1, -man
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.
See Examples For:
She married a landsman, who became a diamond merchant; in the early nineteen-fifties, the couple resettled in the Bronx, and some fifteen years later, as empty-nesters, they went back to Israel.
From The New Yorker ● Mar. 8, 2017
He had the tolerance of a landsman, the faith that comes with witnessing the changing seasons year in and year out.
From Time ● Jul. 25, 2012
Washington had the tolerance of a landsman, the faith that comes with witnessing the changing seasons year in and year out, the sensitivity that accumulates from watching buds burst and colts grow.
From Time Magazine Archive
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In the language of the landsman, we park our boat at our dock as you might park a motor home in your driveway.
From Time Magazine Archive
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Mr. Whitby had likely assumed that I was a landsman to him, provided Frankie hadn’t told him that outright.
From "The City Beautiful" by Aden Polydoros
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“Our people, we’re schmoozers,” Bacall lamented as he prodded his landsmen to move it along.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 12, 2023
“I love my landsmen, but I will never ever understand them,” she posted on Facebook two weeks ago, after a young mother in her community died from COVID-19 in late November.
From Slate ● Dec. 6, 2020
The pitch from the gas companies’ representatives, known as landsmen, were effective, she said.
From New York Times ● Sep. 23, 2011
Weatherbeaten yachtsmen, grizzled veterans of the briny off-shore deep, were somewhat inclined to shake their heads over such cushy concessions to landsmen as wicker chairs, percolators, automobile steering wheels.
From Time Magazine Archive
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No one can say for sure where he was killed, whether some hostile landsmen or the sea, the stormwaves on the deep sea, got the best of him.
From "The Odyssey" by Homer
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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.