Emily Dickinson Lexicon

LAND, n.¹ [Sax. land; Goth. G. D. Dan. and Sw. land. I suppose this to be the W. llan, a clear place or area, and the same as lawn; Cantabrian, landa, a plain or field, It. and Sp. landa. The final d is probably adventitious. The primary sense is a lay or spread. Class Ln.]

1. Earth, or the solid matter which constitutes the fixed part of the surface of the globe, in distinction from the sea or other waters, which constitute the fluid or movable part. Hence we say, the globe is terraqueous, consisting of land and water. The seaman in a long voyage longs to see land.
2. Any portion of the solid, superficial part of the globe, whether a kingdom or country, or a particular region. The United States are denominated the land of freedom. Go, view the land, even Jericho. – Josh. ii.
3. Any small portion of the superficial part of the earth or ground. We speak of the quantity of land in a manor. Five hundred acres of land is a large farm.
4. Ground; soil, or the superficial part of the earth in respect to its nature or quality; as, good land; poor land; moist or dry land.
5. Real estate. A traitor forfeits all his lands and tenements.
6. The inhabitants of a country or region; a nation or people. These answers in the silent night received, / The king himself divulged, the land believed. – Dryden.
7. The ground left unplowed between furrows, is by farmers called a land. To make the land, or To make land, In seamen's language, is to discover land from the sea, as the ship approaches it. To shut in the land, to lose sight of the land left, by the intervention of a point or promontory. To set the land, to see by the compass how it bears from the ship.