downlandn.1
/ˈdaʊnland/, /ˈdaʊnlənd/, U.S. /ˈdaʊnˌlænd/ Hilly land, esp. when open and uncultivated. In later use chiefly: gently rolling hill country, esp. in southern England.Now chiefly with reference to the undulating chalk and limestone landscape of the North and South Downs in southern England.Apparently unattested between the 12th and 17th centuries.
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the world > the earth > land > landscape > high land > [noun]
downlandeOE
downOE
highlandOE
high country1445
wold1472
high ground1489
upland1566
hill-country1582
Chiltern1627
downs country1791
altitude1853
upwold1875
top-land1877
eOE Bounds (Sawyer 449) in W. de G. Birch Cartularium Saxonicum (1887) II. 448 Þonne is þis þara [feohwicuna] gemære & þæs dunlandes on mappeldrelen westweardre.
OE Old Eng. Hexateuch: Deut. (Claud.) i. 7 Farað to Amorrea dune & to oðrum feldlandum & dunlandum & to unhehrum landum [L. campestria atque montana et humiliora loca] on suðhealfe.
OE tr. Pseudo-Apuleius Herbarium (Vitell.) (1984) xx. 66 Ðeos wyrt þe man aristolochiam & oðrum naman smerowyrt nemneð, heo bið cenned on dunlandum & on fæstum stowum [?a1200 Harl. 6258B on dunlandun & on faste stowun; L. locis montuosis et lapidosis et cultis].
1600 E. Coke Les Reports f. 165 Xvi acres of Downe Land and Pasture, in the saide Parish of Barham and kingston aforesaid, and Adsham in the County aforesaid [sc. Kent].
1783 in J. Brown Rep. High Court Parl. 7 Gen. Index sig. 7Kv/1 The Court will also award a perpetual injunction to restrain waste, by ploughing, burning, breaking, or sowing of down-land.
1842 Penny Cycl. XXIII. 343/2 There are also about 50,000 acres of down-land.
1884 W. J. Courthope Addison ii. 27 Salisbury Plain, with..its open tracts of undulating downland.
1898 T. Hardy Wessex Poems 135 Changing anew my onbearer, I traversed the downland.
1916 J. Masefield Sonnets & Poems xxxvi. 40 This beetle-droning downland.
1954 J. F. Kirkaldy Gen. Princ. Geol. ix. 95 The chalk downland between the Kentish or Great Stour and the English Channel consists of broad interfluves, sloping gently northwards, separated by dry valleys.
2004 Daily Tel. 6 Sept. 11/2 The first access areas to be opened up will be downland in Kent, Surrey..and nine London boroughs south of the Thames.
This entry has been updated (OED Third Edition, December 2018; most recently modified version published online March 2022).
downlandn.2
/ˈdaʊnland/, /ˈdaʊnlənd/, U.S. /ˈdaʊnˌlænd/ Low-lying land; (also) land that slopes downwards. Frequently contrasted with upland.
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the world > the earth > land > landscape > low land > [noun]
lowa1200
bottom1342
lowness?a1425
low countryc1450
lowland1488
lowlanda1522
downland1608
bottomland1612
bottom glade1637
lowth1691
underground1842
1608 T. Middleton Trick to catch Old-one i. sig. A3 Still thou'rt a Gentleman, that's all; but a poore one, that's nothing: What Milke brings thy Meadowes forth now? where are thy goodly Vp-lands and thy Downe-lands, all sunck into that little pitte Lecherie?
1617 R. Brathwait Smoaking Age in tr. ‘B. Multibibus’ Solemne Ioviall Disputation 147 Their Long Acres, Uplands and Downe-lands shall flie in a trice to retaine thee.
1789 A. W. Radcliffe Castles Athlin & Dunbayne iv. 93 Hail! every distant hill, and downland plain !
1839 W. B. Stonehouse Hist. Isle of Axholme 399 Descending the downland lawns.
1903 N.Y. Teachers' Monogr. June 106 The western highland came gradually into existence at first in the form of long narrow islands, and the centre downland was for a long period the site of a shallow Mediterranean sea.
1971 Sunday News & Tribune (Jefferson City, Missouri) 31 Oct. 22/6 (advt.) 160 acres upland—downland—all around—bumper crops, 47 fat cattle.
This entry has been updated (OED Third Edition, December 2018; most recently modified version published online March 2022).
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