skyland

From sky +‎ land.

skyland (plural skylands)

1. (poetic) The sky.
   • 1857, J[ames] J[ohn] G[arth] W[ilkinson], “Turner: Painter. His State.”, in Improvisations from the Spirit, London: W. White, ; Manchester: Dunnill and Palmer, →OCLC, page 146:

     Look to the woodlands where the doves / Crowd with their murmurs green alcoves; / Look to the skylands where the clouds / Mantle the East with their glory-shrouds.

   • 1913, John Gould Fletcher, The Book of Nature, 1910-1912, London: Constable and Company Ltd, page 44:

     And the winds from the skylands brought / Over the illimitudes, a thought:— / A thought I could not understand, / That earth lay shadowed ’neath God’s hand.

   • 1951, Herbert Brandt, Arizona and Its Bird Life: A Naturalist’s Adventures with the Nesting Birds on the Deserts, Grasslands, Foothills, and Mountains of Southeastern Arizona, Cleveland, Ohio: The Bird Research Foundation, page 333:

     In the warmest summer weather a temperature of 88 degrees may be reached, but not for long at a time, since speedily a moderating breeze with comforting designs steals down from the skylands.

   • 2001, Victor Bruce, A Vase of Shrubs, Yaba, Lagos: Oracle Books Limited, →ISBN, page 77:

     The sun with its white-blue-sky coverlet sunk deep down the far horizon giving way to a skyland that wore a grey outfit.

2. A mythical abode of gods or spirits in the sky; a heaven.
   • 1907, Frank Welles Calkins, The Wooing of Tokala: An Intimate Tale of the Wild Life of the American Indian Drawn from Camp and Trail, New York, N.Y., Chicago, Ill., Toronto, Ont.: Fleming H. Revell Company, page 82:

     “How, how, sister,” greeted Keyahanhi, recalled from the skylands by her welcome coming.

   • 1955, K Alex Carlsson, Short Tales and American Poems, Bloom Printing Company, page 33:

     Manitou from the skylands once did score / Where the people today have built their homes.

   • 1994, Ann Fienup-Riordan, Boundaries and Passages: Rule and Ritual in Yup’ik Eskimo Oral Tradition, Norman, Okla., London: University of Oklahoma Press, →ISBN, page 305:

     With this supernatural vision went the ability to travel to the skyland, the undersea home of the seals, and the underground land of the dead, where they could communicate with and pacify the forces of nature.

   • 2002, Ayi Kwei Armah, KMT: In the House of Life: An Epistemic Novel, PER ANKH, →ISBN, page 223:

     That is how ancestors came from the skylands to the left.

3. (science fiction) A land above the sky, such as a floating city or another planet.
   • 1967, Collected Papers in Highway Salvage Archaeology, 1972-74, Department of Anthropology, University of Montana, →ISBN, page 55:

     She then went to Miss Green’s house who, when she heard the sound of the six pipe flute, expected to see her husband return from the skyland. She opened the door. Instead, it was the tiger demon who touched the hem of her skirt causing her to fall down in a dead faint.

   • 1993, Gene Wolfe, Nightside the Long Sun (The Book of the Long Sun), Tor Books, →ISBN:

     Tearing his eyes from the skylands, he called, “You warned me that Blood was going to catch me, back there in the city while you were renting these donkeys for us. What do you think he’ll do to me if he does?”

   • 2016, Michael Andre-Driussi, Gene Wolfe: 14 Articles on His Fiction, Sirius Fiction, →ISBN, page 128:

     First he has to find the place, and as the sleeve of night brings darkness to his city of Viron, light to the skylands above, he sets out on his quest.

   • 2021, L.T. Junzon, Descendants of the Lost: Tales of the Seeker, MJ Publishing, →ISBN:

     They passed a number of islands as well as a few low lying skylands, all heavy with vegetation and life.

   • 2022, Yoda Oraiah, Cosmism: A New Hope for Humanity, FriesenPress, →ISBN, page 198:

     The military intelligence confidently surmises that their ethnic origin is either from the skylands in the clouds of Jupiter or from Uranus.

   • 2022 August, Rick Remender, Seven to Eternity, deluxe edition, Image Comics, Inc.:

     But that day in the skylands of Skod, the day of deliverance, I never set out to do anything like what I’m given credit for.