[f. FATHER sb. + LAND.]
1. The land of one’s birth, one’s country, † In fatherland, at home (opp. to abroad). Cf. MOTHER-COUNTRY.
1623. Wodroephe, Marrow Fr. Tongue, 270. I thanke my lucke that hath caused me to find here my Countryman, and one of my Fatherland.
1635. T. Odell (title), A brief and short Treatise called the Christian’s Fatherland.
1683. F. Ellis, Let., in Hedges’ Diary (1887), 120. I hope … to meet with much better [Justice] in Father-Land for ye inexpressable damage done me.
1799. W. Taylor, in Monthly Mag., VII. 399. Through thee alone the father-land is dear.
1840. Gen. P. Thompson, Exerc. (1842), V. 130. Trusting that no foul deed shall hinder them or theirs from returning to their fatherland in peace.
1873. Symonds, Grk. Poets, v. 138. Stesichorus acknowledged an Ionian colony for his fatherland.
b. Used to translate the Dutch or German vaderland, vaterland. The Fatherland: now usually = Germany.
1672. W. Temple, An Essay upon the Original and Nature of Government, Wks. 1731, I. 100. The Dutch, by expressions of dearness, instead of our Country, say our Father-land.
1791–1823. D’Israeli, Cur. Lit. (1858), III. 31. The glorious history of its independence under the title of Vaderlandsche Historie—the history of Father-land.
1839. W. Chambers, Tour Holland, 9/2. The attachment which the Dutch show to their Vaderland, or Fatherland, as they commonly term it, is ascribable as much to their political disasters as to the trouble they have had in securing their country from the sea.
1864. Macm. Mag., Oct., 433. Its [Tübingen’s] famous University … more identified with the spiritual … development of Germany than any other single institution in the Fatherland.
1874. Morley, Compromise (1886), 6. A German has his dream of a great fatherland which shall not only be one and consolidated, but shall in due season win freedom for itself, and be as a sacred hearth whence others may borrow the warmth of freedom and order for themselves.
2. The land of one’s fathers; mother-country.
1822. W. Irving, Braceb. Hall, I. 13. The ancient and genuine characteristics of my father land.
1831. Blackw. Mag., Sept., 528/2. They [the Americans] look to a dreadful breaking-up of those old establishments, under the shelter of which have grown … the liberties of their ‘father-land’ [Great Britain].
Hence Fatherlandish a. [+ -ISH], of, or pertaining to, one’s fatherland.
1832. trans. Tour Germ. Prince, III. x. 279. Two genuine Nürnberg housewives, dressed in their fatherlandish caps. Ibid., IV. ii. 117. The immoveable and unchangeable fatherlandish friend,—the majestic Mont Blanc.
