Etymology

hinterland

H4I1N1T1E1R1L1A1N1D2

Today it means: The land immediately next to, and inland from, a coast. Full definition →

German Hinterland
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The story

  1. German · borrowed fromHinterland
  2. English todayhinterland

Borrowed from German Hinterland, from hinter (“behind”) + Land (“land”), cognate to English hinder (“back, rear”) + land. First used in English in 1888 by George Chisholm in his work Handbook of Commercial Geography originally as hinderland, but the current spelling (following German) became more popular. The term is characteristic of a thalassocratic analysis of space (from the point of view of a nation with maritime supremacy, such as 19th-century Britain).

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.