Word.ws English Dictionary

human terrain

human terrain noun: the social and cultural aspects of an operational environment, especially in a military context.

Noun

human terrain (plural human terrains)

  1. The social and cultural aspects of an operational environment, especially in a military context.
    • Purpose: augment the military’s ability to effectively plan, train, and operate in the complex human terrain of weak states by conducting unbiased, accurate field research in countries of interest and administering related programs.2005 Montgomery McFate and Andrea Jackson, ""An Organizational Solution for DOD’s Cultural Knowledge Needs," Military Review, July-August 2005.
    • The term “human terrain” encompasses a wide variety of concepts and meanings. It came into widespread use following the events of September 11th as a catch all phrase to describe the human dimension of the operational environment, including groups’ and individuals’ feelings and inclinations....2008 Erik B. Eldridge and Andrew J. Neboshynsky, "Quantifying Human Terrain," Thesis, Naval Postgraduate School, June 2008

Examples of human terrain in a sentence

  • The term “human terrain” encompasses a wide variety of concepts and meanings.2008 Erik B. Eldridge and Andrew J. Neboshynsky, "Quantifying Human Terrain," Thesis, Naval Postgraduate School, June 2008
  • This leads us to a definition of human terrain: Those cultural aspects of the battlespace that, due to their static nature, can be visually represented on a geographic map.2008, Barak A. Salmoni, Paula Holmes-Eber, Operational Culture for the Warfighter: Principles and Applications, Government Printing Office...

Forms of human terrain

pluralhuman terrains

Questions about human terrain

What does human terrain mean?
Human terrain means the social and cultural aspects of an operational environment, especially in a military context.
How do you use human terrain in a sentence?
The term “human terrain” encompasses a wide variety of concepts and meanings.
What part of speech is human terrain?
Human terrain is a noun.
What is the plural of human terrain?
The plural of human terrain is human terrains.

Words near human terrain in the dictionary

  1. human shield
  2. human shields
  3. human smuggling
  4. human statue
  5. human statues
  6. human terrain
  7. human terrains
  8. human touch
  9. human trafficker
  10. human traffickers
  11. human trafficking

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: human terrain (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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