Lackland

sb. and a. [f. LACK v.¹ + LAND sb.] A. sb. One who has no landed possessions; one who rules over no territory. B. adj. Of persons: Having no land.

  Used by mod. historians as a rendering of L. Sine Terra (c. 1196 Will. Novoburg. Hist. II. xviii.), AF. Sanz tere (c. 1367 Eulog. Hist. V. cxii.), the designation of King John. Trevisa trans. Higden’s Polychron. VII. xxxii. calls him ‘Iohn wiþ oute londes’; Grafton and Stowe ‘Without land.’

1594.  Greene, Looking Glass, Wks. (Grosart), XIV. 40. How cheere you, gentleman? you crie ‘no lands’ too; the Judge hath made you a knight for a gentleman, hath dubd you sir John Lack-land.

1610.  Holland, Camden’s Brit., 255. Iohn surnamed Sine terra, that is, Without Land [marg. Or nicknamed Iohn Lack-land].

1622.  Rowlands, Good Newes & Bad, 312. What remedy gainst Fortunes raging fits, But liue like other lackelands, by my wits?

1646.  Buck, Rich. III., I. 6. Sobriquets … Sansterre, Lackland.

1762.  Hume, Hist. Eng., I. ix. 330. John who inherited no territory … was thence commonly denominated Lackland.

1820.  [see lack-stock, LACK v.¹ 7].

1839.  Penny Cycl., XIII. 126. John, King of England, surnamed Sansterre or Lackland, a common appellation of younger sons, whose age prevented them from holding fiefs.

1881.  Spectator, 22 Jan., 120. Whatever the lacklands of the League may say to the contrary.

1887.  Pall Mall Gaz., 21 July, 3/2. If they voted for the lackland lawyer they would in the winter starve.

1899.  Cardl. Vaughan, in Westm. Gaz., 29 Aug., 2/3. The transference … of the great commons of England to the rich created a lackland and beggared poor.