landsman

• landman

From land +‎ -s- +‎ man. In meanings 3 and 4, influenced by Yiddish לאַנדסמאַן (landsman). Compare also German Landsmann, Norwegian landsmann. Doublet of lantzman.

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landsman (plural landsmen)

1. A person who does not go to sea, who lacks the skills of a sailor or who is uncomfortable on ships or boats.

   Antonym: seaman

   • 1851 November 14, Herman Melville, “Leg and Arm. The Pequod, of Nantucket, Meets the Samuel Enderby, of London.”, in Moby-Dick; or, The Whale, 1st American edition, New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers; London: Richard Bentley, →OCLC, page 486:

     So, deprived of one leg, and the strange ship of course being altogether unsupplied with the kindly invention, Ahab now found himself abjectly reduced to a clumsy landsman again; hopelessly eyeing the uncertain changeful height he could hardly hope to attain.

   • 1883, Mark Twain, Life on the Mississippi:

     If the landsman should wish the gang-plank moved a foot farther forward, he would probably say: “James, or William, one of you push that plank forward, please”; but put the mate in his place, and he would roar out: “Here, now, start that gang-plank for'ard! Lively, now! What're you about!..."

   • 1886 May 1 – July 31, Robert Louis Stevenson, Kidnapped, being Memoirs of the Adventures of David Balfour in the Year 1751: […], London; Paris: Cassell & Company, published 1886, →OCLC:

     When I returned again to life, the same uproar, the same confused and violent movements, shook and deafened me; and presently, to my other pains and distresses, there was added the sickness of an unused landsman on the sea.

2. (oil and gas industry) A person who negotiates leases, contracts and other business deals between producers and landowners.
3. A fellow Jew who comes from the same district or town, especially in Eastern Europe
4. Someone of a similar heritage or belief system
5. (obsolete, nautical) A military rank given to naval recruits

• (opposite of a seaman): landlubber

• Landmans

From Old Swedish lands man, from Runic Swedish lanmana, equivalent to land + -s- + man.

landsman c (feminine: landsmaninna)

1. a compatriot, a countryman