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:
That has created a desolate no man’s land, roughly 20 miles wide and snaking for hundreds of miles along the front lines.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Nov. 6, 2026
We travelled with government forces from Taiz through checkpoints to the line where their control ends and no man's land begins, in order to see the fighting up close.
From BBC ● Sep. 27, 2026
Research for “The Hidden Nations of Animals” took Mr. Huling to some far-flung locations, including the accidental nature sanctuary that’s arisen in the no man’s land between North and South Korea.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 19, 2026
From a technical perspective, Meta is stuck in no man’s land.
From Barron's ● Dec. 10, 2025
I crossed a high toll bridge and negotiated a no man’s land and came to the place where the Stars and Stripes stood shoulder to shoulder with the Union Jack.
From "Travels with Charley in Search of America" by John Steinbeck
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
To reach Ukraine, the pensioners had to drag their bags across a two-kilometre stretch of no-man's-land.
From BBC ● Mar. 22, 2024
In a rare display of unity, he and President Nikos Christodoulides, the Greek Cypriot leader, met in no-man’s-land dividing the Cypriot capital Nicosia on Friday.
From Reuters ● Jul. 28, 2023
In the ninth, Mets star Francisco Lindor was caught in no-man’s-land on the bases and thrown out.
From Seattle Times ● Aug. 18, 2022
It was as if she had come up on the edge of something, as if she were caught in that no-man’s-land between Cleveland Heights and deep jungle.
From "The Things They Carried" by Tim O'Brien
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Get a wordDefinitions 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.
