Pl. landsmen. [f. genit. of LAND sb. + MAN sb. Cf. LANDMAN.]
† 1. A native of a particular country. Obs.
c. 1000. Ælfric, Hom., II. 26. Tweʓen landes menn and an ælþeodiʓ.
11[?]. O. E. Chron., an. 1068 (Laud MS.). Ða comon ða landes menn toʓeanes him & hine ofsloʓon.
c. 1200. Trin. Coll. Hom., 197. Oðer kinnes neddre is ut in oðer londe … and te londes men hire bigaleð oðer wile and swo lacheð and doð of liue.
1387. Trevisa, Higden (Rolls), VII. 33. It were a wrecched schame þat a newe comynge schulde putte olde londesmen [L. veteres incolas] out of here place.
b. One’s fellow-countryman. rare.
1598. Sylvester, Du Bartas, II. i. III. Furies, 806. If (brave Lands-men) your war-thirst be such [orig. Que si tant, ô François, vous cerchez les batailles] … What holds you here?
1823. Scott, Quentin D., vi. I am innocent—I am your own native landsman.
1882–3. Schaff’s Encycl. Relig. Knowl., I. 319/2. [He] boldly dissuaded his landsmen from idolatry.
2. a. One who lives or has his business on land: opposed to seaman. b. Naut. ‘The rating formerly of those on board a ship who had never been to sea, and who were usually stationed among the waisters or after-guard’ (Adm. Smyth).
1666–7. Pepys, Diary, 2 Jan. The French … have certainly shipped landsmen, great numbers, at Brest.
1788. Burns, 1st Ep. to R. Graham, 50. Weak, timid landsmen on life’s stormy main.
1830. Marryat, King’s Own, i. Employed, as a landsman usually is, in the afterguard, or waist, of the ship.
1845. Darwin, Voy. Nat., x. (1879), 208. Sailors … can make out a distant object much better than a landsman.
1883. Stevenson, Treas. Isl., IV. xviii. Thomas Redruth … landsman, shot by the mutineers.
So Landswoman.
1891. ‘H. S. Merriman,’ Prisoners & Capt., III. viii. 144. The strangeness of a landswoman to all things maritime.
