landminen.
/ˈlan(d)mʌɪn/, U.S. /ˈlæn(d)ˌmaɪn/ 1. An explosive mine laid on or just under the surface of the ground and which detonates when activated by a person, vehicle, etc., passing over or near it.
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1875 Sci. Amer. 20 Mar. 183/3 The application of the compound to land mines was shown by placing two boxes each containing 30 lbs. of the powder in holes in the foreshore of the Swale..covering them with 6 inches of sods, and exploding them.
1890 Electrician 16 Mar. 502/1 Land Mines. These mines..are intended to be placed a few inches below the surface of the ground, and are so constructed that they..fire themselves electrically or mechanically when the measure of the weight of a man is brought to bear upon them.
1915 R. W. Campbell Private Spud Tamson xix. 288 A terrific explosion of land mines, which burst beneath the feet of the enemy.
1973 ‘R. MacLeod’ Nest of Vultures vi. 129 British antipersonnel Claymore land-mines.
1992 U.S. News & World Rep. (Nexis) 18 May 54 The Khmer Rouge has been barring U.N. forces from some areas it controls and resisting U.N. efforts to map minefields as a first step to clearing the estimated 4 million land mines strewn throughout the country.
2013 Daily Tel. (Nexis) 13 July 27 A brother officer in the jeep ahead of him was killed by a landmine.
2. A bomb dropped on to land by parachute from an aircraft. Now historical.Chiefly with reference to the Second World War (1939–45).
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1940 J. Colville Diary 21 Sept. in Fringes of Power (1985) 245 Conversation turned at first to the German use of landmines in their air-raids.
1950 Daily Mail (Hull) 24 June 2/6 On the night of March 18, 1941, eight landmines dropped in the parish.
2016 Church Times 1 Jan. 6/4 (caption) A parachute landmine dropped during the night of 2 January 1941, and caught on the spire before detonating in the churchyard.
This entry has been updated (OED Third Edition, June 2022).
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n.1875