woodland

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woodland

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From Middle English wodeland, wodelond, from Old English wuduland (“woodland; forestland; forest”), equivalent to wood +‎ land. Compare West Frisian wâldlân, Dutch bosland, German Waldland, Icelandic skóglendi.

Eclipsed non-native Middle English salt (“woodland”), borrowed from Latin saltus (“woodland, forest”).

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• IPA^(key): /ˈwʊd.lənd/
• Hyphenation: wood‧land

woodland (comparative more woodland, superlative most woodland)

1. Of a creature or object: growing, living, or existing in a woodland.

   The woodland creatures ran from the fire.

   • 1837, “Picus”, in Charles Frederick Partington (editor), The British Cyclopædia of Natural History, Volume 3, W. S. Orr & Co., page 446:

     This species is a very little larger than the red-headed one; and it is more woodland in its manners; seldom appearing in orchards or near houses, but keeping to the tall trees in the close forests.

   • 1839, Sir William Jardine, Bart., The Natural History of the Birds of Great Britain and Ireland, Part II: Incessories, part of The Naturalist's Library, W.H. Lizars, page 125–6:

     The genera Philomela and Curruca, as we previously observed, are very closely allied to each other, both are woodland in their habits, and both possess great melody of song.

   • 1890 July, Grant Allen, “My Islands”, in Longman's Magazine, volume 16, number 93, page 341:

     It was a couple of hundred years or so more before I saw a third bullfinch — which didn't surprise me, for bullfinches are very woodland birds, and non-migratory into the bargain — so that they didn’t often get blown seaward over the broad Atlantic.

   • 1894, R. Bowdler Sharpe, A Hand-Book to the Birds of Great Britain, volume I, W. H. Allen & Co., Limited, page 91:

     As its name implies, this species [Woodlark] is a more woodland bird than the other British Larks, and in many of its ways of life it resembles the Tree Pipit, frequenting the neighborhood of woods and plantations, but always affecting trees.

2. (obsolete) Having the character of a woodland.
   • 1827, "Amateur", “Northamptonshire, Huntingdonshire, and Bedfordshire Hunting”, in Sporting Magazine, page 64:

     It is a very woodland country, with plenty of grass, but it is too large for four days a-week, and the sport is generally rather indifferent.

   • 1835, Nimrod's Hunting Tours, page 109:

     […] understanding that their next fixture was in a very woodland country, and at a distance, I deferred this pleasure to another opportunity.

   • 1871, George Gill, Fourth Reader‎, page 135:

     Shortly after leaving Swindon the main line enters Wiltshire, and runs through an extremely woodland district to Chippenham […]

woodland (usually uncountable, plural woodlands)

2. (broadly) Land covered with woody vegetation.

   Synonyms: forest, holt, timberland, weald (archaic), wold (archaic), wood, woods

   Hypernyms: land, area

   Meronym: woodlot

   • 1704, Alexander Pope, “Windsor-Forest”, in The Works of Alexander Pope, Esq., volume I, London: C. Barthurst et al., published 1788, page 39:

     Here hills and vales, the woodland and the plain, / Here earth and water ſeem to ſtrive again ; / Not Chaos-like together cruſh’d and bruis’d, / But, as the world, harmoniouſly confus’d : / Where order in variety we ſee, / And where, tho’ all things differ, all agree.

   • 1838, George Bancroft, chapter XV, in History of the United States, from the Discovery of the American Continent, volume II, Boston: Charles C. Little and James Brown:

     The earth glows with the colors of 1837 civilization ; the banks of the streams are enamelled with richest grasses ; woodlands and cultivated fields are harmoniously blended ; the birds of spring find their delight in orchards and trim gardens, variegated with choicest plants from every temperate zone ; while the brilliant flowers of the tropics bloom from the windows of the green-house and the saloon.

   • 2006, Edwin Black, chapter 2, in Internal Combustion‎:

     Buried within the Mediterranean littoral are some seventy to ninety million tons of slag from ancient smelting, about a third of it concentrated in Iberia. This ceaseless industrial fueling caused the deforestation of an estimated fifty to seventy million acres of woodlands.

   • 2020 May 6, Philip Haigh, “Just one more stop on the long journey to HS2 fulfillment ”, in Rail, page 65:

     The project has been subject to vocal criticism from a few loud voices complaining about its effect on ancient woodlands. One campaigner, Chris Packham, took his case to the High Court, where he comprehensively lost in early April - not least on the grounds that Parliament had authorised the works he was complaining about.
     DfT's business case notes: "There are [around] 52,000 ancient woodland sites in England. Of these, a total of 43 will be affected by HS2's route between London and Crewe (Phases 1 and 2a). Over 80% of the total area of these 43 will remain intact and untouched by HS2."

   2. (strictly) A low-density forest.

      Coordinate terms: glade, clearing

      Near-synonym: grove

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