inland

From Middle English inland, inlond, from Old English inland, equivalent to in- +‎ land. Compare West Frisian ynlân (“inland”), German Inland (“inland”), Danish indland (“inland”), Swedish inland (“inland”), Norwegian innland (“inland”). Compare also Dutch binnenland.

• IPA^(key): /ˈɪnlənd/, /-lænd/

• Audio (US):

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• (General Australian) IPA^(key): /ˈɪnˌland/
• Rhymes: -ɪnlənd, -ɪnlænd

inland (comparative more inland, superlative most inland)

1. Within the land; relatively remote from the ocean or from open water; interior.

   an inland town

   • 1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book II, Canto VI”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC, stanza 10, page 259:

     In this wide Inland ſea, that hight by name / The Idle lake, my wandring ſhip I row, […]

   • c. 1596–1598 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Merchant of Venice”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act V, scene i]:

     So doth the greater glory dim the less:
     A substitute shines brightly as a king
     Unto the king be by, and then his state
     Empties itself, as doth an inland brook
     Into the main of waters.

   • 1785, William Cowper, “Book V. The Winter Morning Walk.”, in The Task, a Poem, […], London: […] J[oseph] Johnson;  […], →OCLC, page 221:

     Brutes […] / Ruminate heedleſs of the ſcene outſpread / Beneath, beyond, and ſtretching far away / From inland regions to the diſtant main.

   • 1904–1906, Joseph Conrad, “The Nursery of the Craft”, in The Mirror of the Sea, 1st American edition, New York, N.Y., London: Harper & Brothers, published October 1906, →OCLC, pages 254–255:

     Happy he who, like Ulysses, has made an adventurous voyage; and there is no such sea for adventurous voyages as the Mediterranean—the inland sea which the ancients looked upon as so vast and so full of wonders.

2. Limited to the land, or to inland routes; not passing on, or over, the sea

   inland commerce

   inland navigation

   inland transportation

3. Confined to one country or state; domestic; not foreign.

   an inland bill of exchange

4. (archaic) Of a sophisticated background, especially as relates to a royal court or national capital.

   inland bred

   • c. 1598–1600 (date written), William Shakespeare, “As You Like It”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act II, scene vii]:

     You touch'd my vein at first: the thorny point
     of bare distress hath ta'en from me the show
     of smooth civility; yet am I inland
     bred, and know some nurture.

   • c. 1598–1600 (date written), William Shakespeare, “As You Like It”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act III, scene ii]:

     I have been told so of many; but indeed an old religious
     uncle of mine taught me to speak, who was in his youth an inland
     man; one that knew courtship too well, for there he fell in love.

inland (plural inlands)

1. The interior part of a country.
   • 1599 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Life of Henry the Fift”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act I, scene ii]:

     a wall sufficient to defend
     Our inland from the pilfering borderers.

• inlander
• inlandish

inland (comparative more inland, superlative most inland)

1. Into, or towards, the interior of the land, away from the coast.
   • 1836, Sharon Turner, The History of England […] :

     The greatest waves of population have rolled inland from the east.

• “inland”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.

• Landin, Niland, landin'