Word.ws English Dictionary

landnam

UK/ˈlandnam/US/ˈlændnɑm/

landnam noun: the occupation of land, especially if previously uncultivated.

Noun

landnam (uncountable)

  1. (especially) The occupation of land, especially if previously uncultivated.
    • Iversen holds that these changes indicate the arrival of farmers, the phase of Landnam or land occupation, that the charcoal comes from clearance fires; that herbaceous pollen suggests the opening-up of the land; cereals, fields; the plantains, weeds; and birch and hazel, regeneration of the...[1958 [1946], Frederick E. Zeuner, Dating The Past: An Introduction To Geochronology, fourth edition, London: Methuen & Co. Ltd., pages 78-79
    • On marginal landscapes and during unsettled times, the initial impact of landnam might lade away, and a new landnam would have to restart the sequence.1997, Stephen J. Pyne, “Controlled Combustion: Fire in Central Europe”, in Vestal Fire: An Environmental History, Told Through Fire, of Europe and Europe's Encounter with the World, Seattle...

Origin of landnam

Borrowed from Danish landnam, from Old Norse landnám. Compare Dutch landname and German Landnahme.

Questions about landnam

What does landnam mean?
Landnam means the occupation of land, especially if previously uncultivated.
What part of speech is landnam?
Landnam is a noun.
How do you pronounce landnam?
Landnam is pronounced /ˈlandnam/ (UK).

Words near landnam in the dictionary

  1. landmined
  2. landmines
  3. landmining
  4. landmonger
  5. landmongers
  6. landnam
  7. Lando
  8. Landoc
  9. landocracies
  10. landocracy
  11. landocrat

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: landnam (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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Cite this entry: “landnam.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/landnam. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.