landward
US/ˈlændwɚd/
landward adjective: located, facing or moving in the direction of the land, as opposed to the sea.
Adjective
landward (not comparable)
- Located, facing or moving in the direction of the land, as opposed to the sea.
- […] the enclosure in which Bulan resided lay on a landward slope a quarter of a mile from the shore, and so divided from it by lofty trees, that, unless when the inhabitants sought the coast for fishing, they took little heed of what was passing at sea.1849, Catherine Gore, chapter 8, in Adventures in Borneo: A Tale of Shipwreck, London: Henry Colburn, page 205
- Ninefold deep to the top of the dykes the galloping breakers stride,
And their overcarried spray is a sea—a sea on the landward side.1903, Rudyard Kipling, “The Dykes”, in The Five Nations, New York: Doubleday, page 25
- Synonyms:
- shoreward, shorewards, beachward, beachwards
- Of the country as opposed to the city, rural; agricultural.
- […] they recommend to all ministers within the bounds, magistrates of towns, and heritors of landward parishes, to exert themselves, and use every prudent and reasonable method in getting their respective congregations to be taught properly, as occasion shall offer.1755 October, The Scots Magazine, volume 17, page 512
- Hence we may see the weakness and absurdity of that kind of jealousy and aversion which seems to subsist between the landward and manufacturing classes of people.1790, John Naismith, Thoughts on Various Objects of Industry Pursued in Scotland, Edinburgh: self-published, Book III, Chapter 2, pp. 331-332
Adverb
landward (not comparable)
- Toward the land.
- The seamen furl the canvas, strike the mast,
Then dip their nimble oars, and landward haste.1718, Nicholas Rowe, Lucan’s Pharsalia Translated into English Verse, 2nd edition, London: J. Tonson, published 1722, Volume I, Book III, lines 73-74, p. 122 - ’Twas the returning tide, that afar from the waste of the ocean,
With the first dawn of the day, came heaving and hurrying landward.1847 November 1, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, “V”, in Evangeline, a Tale of Acadie, Boston, Mass.: William D. Ticknor & Company, →OCLC, part I, lines 661-662
- Synonyms:
- shoreward, shorewards, beachward, beachwards
- The seamen furl the canvas, strike the mast,
Noun
landward (uncountable)
- The side facing land.
- The Generall then being at supper, and hearing that call, and looking out to landward, sawe those savage people comming after [Fernan Veloso], and presently imagined they meant him harme, and therefore forthwith he commaunded the whole to put themselves in battaile araye, and he himselfe with...1582, chapter 2, in Nicholas Lichefield, transl., The First Booke of the Historie of the Discoverie and Conquest of the East Indias […] set foorth in the Portingale language by Hernan Lopes de...
- The Town is large, containing about five hundred well-built Houses, built with Dutch-Brick, and the meanest not valued under one hundred Pounds; to the landward it is encompassed with a Wall of a good thickness, and fortified at the entrance of the River, so as to command any Ship which passeth...1687, Richard Blome, “A Description of New-York”, in The Present State of His Majesties Isles and Territories in America, London: D. Newman, page 203
landward meaning in Malay
landward in Malay
- in the direction of the land
- daya
Examples of landward in a sentence
- “But if you are landward bred it will be different.1893, Robert Louis Stevenson, Catriona, Chapter:
- Landward, it may be bordered by a beach, marsh, bulkhead, or stretch of riprap.1984, Alice Jane Lippson, Robert L. Lippson, chapter 3, in Life in the Chesapeake Bay, 2nd edition, Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University...
- He sailed along, still northward, day after day; several important people joined him; but the news from landward grew daily more ominous […]1875, Thomas Carlyle, chapter 10, in The Early Kings of Norway, London: Chapman & Hall, page 139:
- Rude and bare hills embraced the inlet upon either hand; it was enclosed to the landward by a bulk of shattered mountains.1896, Robert Louis Stevenson, In the South Seas, Part 1, Chapter 1:
Synonyms of landward
Antonyms
Origin of landward
From land + -ward.
Questions about landward
- What does landward mean?
- Landward means located, facing or moving in the direction of the land, as opposed to the sea.
- What is landward in Malay?
- Landward in Malay is daya. See Landward meaning in Malay.
- How do you use landward in a sentence?
- “But if you are landward bred it will be different.
- What part of speech is landward?
- Landward can be an adjective, an adverb or a noun.
- How do you pronounce landward?
- Landward is pronounced /ˈlændwɚd/ (US).
Words near landward in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: landward (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: “landward.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/landward. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.