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land

Definition, pronunciation, etymology, and usage for the English word. Free spelling reference powered by Wiktionary.

Letters

4 characters

Language

English

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Detailed reference entry for the English word "land", 4-letters, with pronunciation in International Phonetic Alphabet notation, etymology traced through Germanic and Romance roots where applicable, common misspelling variants catalogued from Hunspell error dictionaries, and usage frequency ranked against the top 100,000 English words in the Wordfreq corpus. PlainSpell covers English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and German spelling with confusable-pair detection that highlights visually and phonetically similar words. This entry for "land" includes synonyms, antonyms, homophones, and cross-language translation pointers sourced from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org extract. Whether you are verifying the correct spelling of "land" for academic writing, checking homophone confusion, or exploring etymological origins, this page provides a citation-backed, free reference that requires no sign-up.

land is aEnglishnoun. It means: The part of Earth which is not covered by oceans or other bodies of water. Pronounced /lænd/. It ranks #608 in English word frequency. Often confused with LN and law.

Key facts for land
PropertyValue
Headwordland
LanguageEnglish
Part of speechNoun
IPA/lænd/
Letters4
Frequency rank#608
Misspellings tracked6
Confusable pairs20
SourceWiktionary (kaikki.org)

Frequency rank visualization

Position of land in English word frequency (lower rank = more common)

Source: Wordfreq corpus

Spelling & Dictionary Insight

The English entry for land is 4 letters long, classified as anoun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /lænd/. Corpus data places it at rank #608 in overall English word frequency, putting it firmly in the everyday core of the language.Wiktionary records 17 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.

Our Hunspell-derived misspelling index lists 6 documented wrong-spelling variants for land, with forms such as "alnd", "ladn", and "landd". Each variant represents a distinct typo pattern that appears often enough in corpora to be worth flagging, typically a doubled-consonant error, a silent-letter drop, or a vowel substitution.It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "LN", "law", "LED", and more, where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.

Etymologically, the entry records: Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *lendʰ- Proto-Indo-European *-om Proto-Germanic *landą Proto-West Germanic *land Old English land Middle English lond English land From Middle English lond, land, from Old English land, from Proto-West Germanic *land, from… Root origin matters for spelling because borrowed morphemes (Greek, Latin, Old French, Old English) carry their source-language orthographic conventions into modern English, which is why historical etymology is often the cleanest predictor of whether a cluster like "-ough", "-eau", or "-tion" will appear. For readers arriving here from a spelling check, the authoritative guidance is: the correct English form is land, spelled L-A-N-D, and any other sequence of those letters, regardless of how natural it feels, is a misspelling in standard orthography.

Definition

  1. 1
    The part of Earth which is not covered by oceans or other bodies of water.
  2. 2
    Real estate or landed property; a partitioned and measurable area which is owned and acquired and on which buildings and structures can be built and erected.
  3. 3
    A country or region.
  4. 4
    A person's country of origin and/or homeplace; homeland.
  5. 5
    The soil, in respect to its nature or quality for farming.
  6. 6
    Realm, domain.
  7. 7
    The ground left unploughed between furrows.
  8. 8
    Any of several portions into which a field is divided for ploughing.
  9. 9
    A shock or fright.
  10. 10
    A conducting area on a board or chip which can be used for connecting wires.
  11. 11
    On a compact disc or similar recording medium, an area of the medium which does not have pits.
  12. 12
    The non-airline portion of an itinerary. Hotel, tours, cruises, etc.
  13. 13
    The ground or floor.
  14. 14
    The lap of the strakes in a clinker-built boat; the lap of plates in an iron vessel; called also landing.
  15. 15
    In any surface prepared with indentations, perforations, or grooves, that part of the surface which is not so treated, such as the level part of a millstone between the furrows.
  16. 16
    In any surface prepared with indentations, perforations, or grooves, that part of the surface which is not so treated, such as the level part of a millstone between the furrows.
  17. 17
    A group of dwellings or tenements under one roof and having a common entry.

Etymology

Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *lendʰ- Proto-Indo-European *-om Proto-Germanic *landą Proto-West Germanic *land Old English land Middle English lond English land From Middle English lond, land, from Old English land, from Proto-West Germanic *land, from Proto-Germanic *landą (“land”), from Proto-Indo-European *lendʰ- (“land, heath”). Cognates Cognate with Scots laund (“land”), Yola lhoan, lloan, loan, londe, lone (“land”), North Frisian loun, luin, lun, Lön, lönj, löön (“land”), Saterland Frisian Lound (“land”), West Frisian lân (“land”), Limburgish Land, landj, Laïnt (“land”), Dutch land (“land, country”), Luxembourgish and German Land (“land, country, state”), Vilamovian łaond (“land”), Danish, Elfdalian, Faroese, Icelandic, Norwegian Bokmål, Norwegian Nynorsk and Swedish land (“land, country, shore, territory”). Non-Germanic cognates include Old Irish lann (“heath”), Welsh llan (“enclosure”), Breton lann (“heath”), Old Church Slavonic лѧдо (lędo), from Proto-Slavic *lędo (“heath, wasteland”), French lande (“heath”) and Albanian lëndinë (“heath, grassland”).

This word in other languages

Common misspellings

Also misspelled as: alnd,ladn,landd,lannd,lland,lnad

Misspelling Pattern Breakdown

Relative frequency of common misspelling types for land

Misspelling Variants of "land"

alnd4ladn4landd5lannd5lland5lnad4
Misspelling Variants of "land"

Frequency rank: #608 in English

Frequently Asked Questions

How do you spell "land"?
"land" is spelled L-A-N-D. The IPA pronunciation is /lænd/.
What does "land" mean?
As a noun, "land" means: The part of Earth which is not covered by oceans or other bodies of water.
What words are commonly confused with "land"?
"land" is commonly confused with "LN", "law", "LED". These words look or sound similar but have different meanings. PlainSpell provides detailed comparisons for each pair.
How do you pronounce "land"?
The IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) transcription for "land" is /lænd/. Click the speaker icon on the pronunciation badge above to hear it spoken aloud where audio is available.
What is the origin of the word "land"?
Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *lendʰ- Proto-Indo-European *-om Proto-Germanic *landą Proto-West Germanic *land Old English land Middle English lond English land From Middle English lond, land, from Old English land, from Proto-West Germanic *... See the full etymology section above for more details.
Is PlainSpell free to use?
Yes, PlainSpell is a completely free word reference. You can look up definitions, pronunciations, confusable pairs, homophones, and spelling corrections across 5 languages without any sign-up or subscription.

Nearby English words

Other entries that begin with the letter L in our English index:

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Data Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org), licensed under CC BY-SA & GFDL. Frequency data from Wordfreq. Misspellings derived from Hunspell dictionaries.