no man's landn.
/ˈnəʊ mənz ˌland/, U.S. /ˈnoʊ ˌmænz ˌlænd/ 1. (A piece of) waste or unowned land; an uninhabited or desolate area.Esp. in early use as a place name, often referring to a place on a boundary or between boundaries; spec. †a piece of ground outside the north wall of London, formerly used as a place of execution (obsolete).
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the world > existence and causation > creation > productiveness > unproductiveness > [noun] > unproductive place
no man's landc1350
wilderness1594
wastage1823
Sahara1855
wasteland1869
dead zone1902
society > authority > punishment > capital punishment > [noun] > place of > specific sites
no man's landc1350
St Thomas (a, also of) Watering(s)c1405
gemonies1598
Execution-Dock1694
barathrum1849
the mind > possession > non-possession > fact of not being possessed or owned > [noun] > that which is not owned > land which is not owned
none man's landOE
no man's land1719
c1350 in G. J. Aungier Croniques de London (1844) 56 Fut un Bernard d'Espaygne..descole a Loundres a Nomanneslond.
1389 in R. R. Sharpe Cal. Wills Court of Husting (1890) II. 283 (MED) [The highway between] Nomanneslonde [and] Iseldon.
1409 in R. R. Sharpe Cal. Let.-bks. London (1909) I. 82 (MED) [The street leading from Aldrichegate to] Nomanslond.
1598 J. Stow Suruay of London 356 Ralph Stratforde Bishop of London, in the yeare 1348. bought a peece of ground called no mans land, which he inclosed with a wall of Bricke.
1650 Parl. Survey Duchy of Cornwall (1982) ii. 10 The said Mannor is..bounded..by the Highway unto a peece of land called Noe Mans Land on the West.
1719 D. Defoe Farther Adventures Robinson Crusoe 317 This was a Kind of Border, that might be call'd no Man's Land.
1769 T. Smollett Adventures of Atom II. 20 Philip Frost..died..of a high fever caught by overheating himself in walking for a wager from No Man's Land to the World's End.
a1834 S. T. Coleridge Reproof & Reply in Compl. Poet. Wks. (1912) I. 442 The garden's maze, like No-man's-land, I tread, Nor common law, nor statute in my head.
1881 T. Hughes Rugby, Tennessee 50 A small lot of noman's land in the woods.
1890 C. W. Dilke Probl. Greater Brit. I. 517 The country is not a no-man's land.
1909 Westm. Gaz. 21 Aug. 14/1 This place has a higher attraction..for it is no-man's-land, eligible for building on, threatened, but as yet unoccupied.
1975 Country Life 19 June 1637/1 Until the Dutchman Vermuyden came on the scene..to control..the river Great Ouse..much of the region was a marshy no-man's-land through which..the only means of transport was by boat.
1984 D. DeLillo White Noise (1985) iii. xxxi. 231 We..went out to the commercial strip in the no man's land beyond the town boundary.
2. Nautical. A space amidships; (originally) spec. the area between the forecastle and the booms in a square-rigged vessel, where ropes, blocks, and tackles are stowed. rare.
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society > travel > travel by water > vessel, ship, or boat > parts of vessels > part of vessel above water > [noun] > deck > upper deck > parts of
waist1495
quarterdeck1622
gangway1700
main deck1730
well-deck1759
booms1764
no man's land1769
1769 W. Falconer Universal Dict. Marine No Man's Land, a space between the after-part of the belfrey and the fore-part of a ship's boat, when the said boat is stowed upon the booms.
1985 A. Ansted & P. Clissold Dict. Sea Terms (ed. 3) 200 No man's land, in ships, a space amidships, but neither on the starboard nor on the port side, from which circumstance the term is supposed to be derived.
3. An imaginary or intermediate place. In later use also: an indeterminate state, a state of confusion or uncertainty.
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the world > space > place > [noun] > intermediate
no man's landa1845
interlocation1890
shadowland1949
never-never land1971
a1845 T. Hood Compl. Poet. Wks. (1906) 339 The empty air he boxed with, a-la-Bitton, As if in training for a fight, long plann'd, With Nobody—for love—at No Man's Land!
1870 H. A. Nicholson Man. Zool. I. Gen. Introd. 6 Some observers have established an intermediate kingdom, a sort of no-man's-land, for the reception of those debatable organisms.
1925 V. Lindsay Coll. Poems iv. 206 My lady of the tea-rose, my lady far away, Queen of the fleets of No-Man's-Land That sail to old Cathay.
1954 M. Beresford Lost Villages Eng. v. 166 The crucial years lie half in a no-man's-land of English historical research.
1991 J. Keenan Putting on Ritz (1992) xvi. 181 I went over to say hi, and as I hovered in the no-man's-land of the unintroduced, my eyes wandered to the long corridor outside.
4.
a. Military. The terrain between two opposing (usually entrenched) armies. Also: a stretch of disputed territory.
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society > armed hostility > armed encounter > battlefield > [noun] > front or front line > no man's land
no man's land1864
1864 Sir R. Murchison in Proc. Royal Geogr. Soc. 8 251 The intermediate country is a sort of No-man's-land, in which numerous warring small tribes are kept in an excited and barbarous state by an extensive importation of firearms.
1876 Jrnl. Anthropol. Inst. 5 189 A dread of their courage and skill in war has established between them and those neighbours a no-man's land of fifty or sixty miles in breadth.
1908 Blackwood's Mag. Dec. 761 Here and there in that wilderness of dead bodies—the dreadful ‘No-Man's-Land’ between the opposing lines—deserted guns showed up singly or in groups.
1936 M. Plowman Faith called Pacifism 97 The order I received..to go out across No-man's-land, and cut the throat of the nearest German lad on sentry.
1989 Blitz Feb. 59/2 The Israelis wouldn't..allow my car through. I told Akbar to meet me there in two days and then hiked across no-man's-land to a line of taxis on the other side.
2002 N.Y. Times 17 Feb. iv. 3/4 Don't slaughter P.O.W.'s, don't ravish women, don't put P.O.W.'s in the front line to de-mine no man's land.
b. A dangerous or forbidden place; a no-go area.
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the world > action or operation > harm or detriment > danger > [noun] > instance or cause of > dangerous place
the lion's moutha1225
unsanctuary?1617
Indian country1625
in the lion's paws1629
witch's cauldron1816
hot spot1837
no man's land1926
red zone1942
trouble spot1956
1926 in S. E. Reporter (U.S.) (1927) 135 711/2 The defendant appeared..and announced generally..that ‘he was a bad man from no man's land’.
1972 R. Allen Skinhead Escapes v. 26 One of the Sunday newspapers had given the bastards enough publicity to make Cheltenham a No Man's Land area for his old fraternity.
1992 R. Elliot Lover's Charade (BNC) xii For a long moment [she] could do nothing but gaze at the stage, torn between seeing it as a hostile no-man's-land and home.
c. An area between the baseline and service line of a tennis court, in which a player is regarded as being at a tactical disadvantage.
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society > leisure > sport > types of sport or game > ball game > racket games > lawn tennis > [noun] > court > parts of
baseline1875
centreline1882
runback1891
alley1904
cover1907
no man's land1931
tramline1937
ad court1946
1931 J. H. Doeg & A. Danzig Elem. Lawn Tennis 65 If you hesitate you are caught in what is known as ‘No Man's Land’, the territory between the service line and the baseline.
1969 New Yorker 14 June 68/3 Graebner, in no man's land, drives the ball far into Ashe's backhand corner.
2002 Daily Yomiuri (Tokyo) (Nexis) 2 Feb. 24 Time and again, she drove the world No. 10 player to the baseline and then came to the net to finish her off, snapping at Seles' returns like a cobra to volley into no-man's land.
This entry has been updated (OED Third Edition, December 2003; most recently modified version published online March 2022).
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n.c1350