old landn.
/ˈəʊl(d) ˌland/, U.S. /ˈoʊl(d) ˈlænd/ 1. British (now chiefly English regional). Originally: arable land lying fallow. Later (also): spec. arable land sown with grass for more than two years. Also: land newly ploughed after having been uncultivated for some time.
ΘΚΠ
the world > food and drink > farming > farm > farmland > land suitable for cultivation > [noun] > cultivated land > newly cultivated land
old landeOE
new ground1624
newtake1791
novalia1838
breaking1867
eOE Bald's Leechbk. (Royal) (1865) ii. lii. 270 Wenwyrt, sio weaxeþ on ealdum lande.
OE Bounds (Sawyer 389) in D. Hooke Pre-Conquest Charter-bounds Devon & Cornwall (1994) 134 Foewer æceras bewestan exan fornagean edferðes eald lande.
1434 in L. Morsbach Mittelengl. Originalurkunden (1923) 16 (MED) vi parcellis of land..ycald Cukkowis, and þe oldelond liggingge in wighttersham, upon þe den of pesyndene.
1667 N. Fairfax Let. 5 Dec. in H. Oldenburg Corr. (1967) IV. 11 [Suffolk] In ye breaking up of good olland, ye last furrow will somtyms cut ye pann or dead soyle.
1788 Ann. Agric. 9 429 The following is the former [rotation of crops]: 1 and 2. Ollond, or lay of two years, 3. Wheat or oats on one earth, 4. Turnips, 5. Barley.
1804 A. Young Gen. View Agric. Norfolk 229 The turnips..are..thrown on ollands, or wheat stubbles.
1882 Notes & Queries 18 Nov. 406/2 It was the land ploughed out of grass (out-land), which was known as olland.
1895 P. H. Emerson Birds, Beasts, & Fishes Norfolk Broadland 8 Newlays and ollunts close by the marsh farmhouse.
1917 Daily News 27 Apr. 2/6 Fields which ought to be ploughed and are still olland or stubble.
1958 H. G. Sanders Outl. Brit. Crop Husbandry (ed. 3) 57 The almost universal practice was to ‘muck the ollands’, that is, the old leys just before they were ploughed up for wheat.
1991 BBC Gardeners' World Aug. 44/3 In best ‘old land’ tradition, the meadow needs a dressing of organic matter each year in late winter.
2. U.S. Land that has been in cultivation for a long time, or exhausted by a long period of cultivation. Now rare.
ΘΚΠ
the world > food and drink > farming > farm > farmland > land suitable for cultivation > [noun] > cultivated land > land cultivated of old
old fieldOE
old land1715
1715 in Amer. Speech (1940) 15 290/2 At the Corner of the said Jones's old land.
1748 J. Eliot Ess. Field-husbandry in New-Eng. 16 The third sort of Land I would speak of is our old Land which we have worn out.
1833 B. Silliman Man. Sugar Cane 10 Violet cane..prefers old land, and that which is rather dry.
1872 Rep. Indian Affairs 1871 (U.S.) 230 It is my intention, during the coming season, to..summer-fallow as much of the old land as can be spared from cultivation.
1919 D. L. Cady Rhymes Vermont Rural Life 67 I learnt soon after I was born To never use ‘old land’ for corn.
1950 Amer. Speech 25 85 No longer heard is old land, though pole barn and pole corral still describe forms of construction.
3. With the, and frequently with capital initials. In the language of colonists or those living or travelling abroad: a country of origin, esp. Britain or Ireland. Cf. old country n. Now rare.
ΚΠ
1846 Fraser's Mag. Apr. 399/1 To think of Milly wasting herself in a land so far away..; Milly, that had received an education that would fit her to stay in the old land and hold a better place than her equals.
1859 C. F. Alexander Legend of Golden Prayers 156 How will he..bless the breeze that brings from the old land..Another sister to his exiled band.
1891 E. Hulme Settler's 35 Years Experience in Victoria 1 When living in the ‘Old Land’..I belonged to a class of which there are many thousands.
1921 Daily Colonist (Victoria, Brit. Columbia) 13 Mar. 11/4 The benefit concert arranged in aid of an aged woman and infirm son, to enable them to reach friends in the Old Land.
1950 R. Davies At my Heart's Core 25 Haven't I the art of a real Irish story-teller? Amn't I the latter-day heir o' the great bards and story-tellers of the old land?
4. Geology. (Usually oldland.) Land which lies behind a coastal plain of more recent origin, esp. where the coastal plain has been built up from sedimentary material derived from that same land. Also: an area of very ancient crystalline rocks, esp. when reduced to low relief.
ΘΚΠ
the world > the earth > structure of the earth > [noun] > fundamental complex > kratogen
old land1895
kratogen1923
craton1935
the world > the earth > land > land mass > shore or bank > land near coast > [noun] > behind
hinterland1890
old land1895
1895 Geogr. Jrnl. 5 133 The old-land streams..are extended across the new coastal plain by the addition of consequent lower courses.
1903 Jrnl. Geol. (Chicago) 11 617 The Canadian shield of Suess..marks the site of the oldland area from which the materials of the later sedimentary deposits were derived.
1939 A. K. Lobeck Geomorphol. xiv. 447 It [sc. a coastal plain] may rest upon an oldland of simple structure or of complex structure.
1957 Geogr. Jrnl. 123 503 Observations carried out on the Dartmoor tract of the oldland of south-west England.
1988 Philos. Trans. (Royal Soc.) A. 327 28 The sandstone and shale are intercalated with gypsum and show shallow water ripple-marks and cross-bedding near the ‘Zadoi oldland’.
1996 G. Goodland Littoral 19 Elvan headlands of an oldland planed down so hard it subsists apart from geologic change.
This entry has been updated (OED Third Edition, March 2004; most recently modified version published online March 2022).
<
n.eOE