no man's land
noun
an area between opposing armies, over which no control has been established.
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no man's land
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no-man's-land
no-man's-landnounland between boundaries, esp an unoccupied zone between opposing forces
no man's land
Americannoun
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an area between opposing armies, over which no control has been established.
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an unowned or unclaimed tract of usually barren land.
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an indefinite or ambiguous area where guidelines and authority are not clear.
a no man's land between acceptance and rejection.
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(in tennis, handball, etc.) the area of a court in which a player is at a tactical disadvantage, as the area of a tennis court about midway between the net and the base line.
no-man's-land
British
noun
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land between boundaries, esp an unoccupied zone between opposing forces
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an unowned or unclaimed piece of land
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an ambiguous area of activity or thought
Etymology
Origin of no man's land
Middle English word dating back to 1300–50
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:
From a technical perspective, Meta is stuck in no man’s land.
From Barron's ● Dec. 10, 2025
On crude, “we are also still in no man’s land regarding the glut,” Neil Crosby of Sparta Commodities says in a note.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Nov. 7, 2025
After those two days in no man's land - between India and Bangladesh - she says she was taken to what appeared to be an old prison on the Bangladeshi side.
From BBC ● Jun. 4, 2025
The area between the two bunkers is referred to as the "front line", "buffer zone" or "no man's land".
From BBC ● Sep. 19, 2023
Out beyond the frontline trenches, no man’s land separating the opposing armies might be anywhere from a mile or more across to barely twenty-five yards wide.
From "The War to End All Wars: World War I" by Russell Freedman
But enforcement of these laws has long occupied an unusual no-man’s-land in this country, scrambling the standard political lines around criminal justice.
From Salon ● Jun. 2, 2026
This map shows the hundreds of ships huddling at either end of the strait, which has become a no-man’s-land.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Mar. 14, 2026
He was then exiled in 1992 to a no-man's-land between Israel and Lebanon, along with a number of Hamas leaders.
From BBC ● Jul. 31, 2024
Soon the Ziwaris would be on the brink of a more terrifying leg of the journey: the no-man’s-land between Colombia and Panama.
From Reuters ● Feb. 1, 2023
The yellow bus rumbled through a tumbledown section of town, an industrial no-man’s-land of railroad tracks, warehouses, and empty factories with broken windows and rusted steel roofs.
From "Eleven" by Tom Rogers
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.
