[f. LAND sb. + OWNER.] An owner or proprietor of land. Hence Landownership.
a. 1733. North, Ld. Kpr. North (1742), 137. Any Land Owner may make that which they call a Key, next to the River.
1845. Darwin, Voy. Nat., xii. (1879), 255. Each landowner in the valley possesses a certain portion of hill-country.
1849. Macaulay, Hist. Eng., vi. II. 141. Landowners hastened to sell their estates for whatever could be got.
1867. Musgrave, Nooks Old France, II. 334. England’s landownership will never be without the representatives and reflected honours of her ancient Aristocracy.
1878. Jevons, Prim. Pol. Econ., 91. Many large land-owners in England refuse to let their land for long periods.
So Landowning sb. and a.
1845. Miall, in Nonconf., V. 149. The landowning majority contemplate no concessions.
1881. W. Bence Jones, in Macm. Mag., XLIV. 127/1. Landowning and farming are as much businesses as cotton-spinning.
1894. Mrs. H. Ward, Marcella, I. 280. I … have no landowning relations.
