Word.ws English Dictionary

landshark

landshark noun: a customs officer.

Noun

landshark (plural landsharks)

  1. (derogatory, obsolete, slang, among smugglers) A customs officer.
  2. (derogatory, obsolete, slang) A swindler or fraudster.
  3. (derogatory) A landgrabber.
    • By the Europeans, Sir, to gratify the lust of the landsharks and land-jobbers who hungered after the lands of the Natives: it was to satisfy their greed, and not for the benefit of the Natives in any way.1880, Parliamentary Debates, New Zealand. Parliament. House of Representatives, page 332

Forms of landshark

plurallandsharks
alternative formland shark
alternative formland-shark

Origin of landshark

From land + shark.

Questions about landshark

What does landshark mean?
Landshark means a customs officer.
What part of speech is landshark?
Landshark is a noun.
What is the plural of landshark?
The plural of landshark is landsharks.

Words near landshark in the dictionary

  1. Landseers
  2. Landsgemeinde
  3. Landsgemeindes
  4. landshard
  5. landshards
  6. landshark
  7. landsharks
  8. landship
  9. landships
  10. Landshut
  11. landsick

Source and license

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