▪ I. landsman
(ˈlændzmən)
Pl. landsmen.
[f. genit. of land n.1 + man n. Cf. landman.]
1. † a. A native of a particular country. Obs.
| c 1000 ælfric Hom. II. 26 Tweᵹen landes menn and an ælþeodiᵹ. 11.. O.E. Chron. an. 1068 (Laud MS.) Ða comon ða landes menn toᵹeanes him & hine ofsloᵹon. 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.
| 1598 Sylvester Du Bartas ii. i. iii. Furies 806 If (brave Lands-men) your war-thirst be such [orig. Que si tant, ô Francois, 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. 1950 B. Malamud in Partisan Rev. Sept.–Oct. 664 With, after all, a landsman, he would have less to fear than with a complete stranger. 1971 Islander (Victoria, B.C.) 3 Jan. 10/3, I found out the mate was a landsman of mine who came from Helsingfors. 1973 Listener 20 Sept. 377/1 You put on your Shabbat suit..and descended on a nearby relative or landsman. |
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. |
▪ II. ‖ landsman, n.2
(ˈlɒntsmɒn)
[Yiddish, fr. MHG. lantsman, lantman a native. Cf. landman n.1]
In Jewish use: a Jewish person who immigrated, or whose family immigrated, from the same country as another (esp. oneself or one's family); a compatriot.
| 1933 Amer. Mercury Aug. 476/2 A friend who is rooming with a landsman, a man who has been in this country for twenty-five years, told me this illuminating story. 1950 B. Malamud in Partisan Rev. Sept.–Oct. 664 With, after all, a landsman, he would have less to fear than with a complete stranger. 1973 Listener 20 Sept. 377/1 You put on your Shabbat suit..and descended on a nearby relative or landsman. 1975 R. H. Rimmer Premar Experiments (1976) i. 94 Every last Jew is a landsman, and hence he's related to every other Jew. 1987 A. Wiseman Lucky Mom in Mem. Bk. Molesting Childhood 164 Dr. Joe Greenberg, whose parents came from the same district in the Ukraine as mine, which makes him a landsman, practically a relative. |