A holder, proprietor or occupier of land; in mod. use sometimes (opposed to land-owner), a tenant holding land from a proprietor.
1414. Rolls Parlt., IV. 58. They have cleymed … the Kynges trew lieges, that ben his fre tenentz annexed to his Coroune, as for her bonde bore men, and her bonde lond holderes.
1662. Dugdale, Imbanking, 51. The Land-holders in the said Marsh.
1691. Locke, Consid. Lower. Interest (1692), 88. Here is one fourth part of his yearly Income goes immediately out of the Landlords and Landholders Pocket.
1741. Tailfer (title), A … Narrative of the Colony of Georgia in America … By Pat. Tailfer, M.D. … and others, Land-holders in Georgia.
1800. Asiat. Ann. Reg., Chron., 28/1. The great body of the land-holders appear fully impressed with a sense of the superior comforts they enjoy.
1874. Green, Short Hist., i. § 1. 3. In the very earliest glimpse we get of the German race we see them a race of land-holders and land-tillers.
1880. McCarthy, in 19th Cent., Aug., 310. A combination of all the great interests concerned, the landowner as well as the landholder; the peer as well as the peasant.
So Landholding a.
1876. Digby, Real Prop., I. i. § 1. 8. The assembly of landholding inhabitants considered as tenants of a lord.
