Etymology

landmark

L1A1N1D2M3A1R1K5

Today it means: An object that marks the boundary of a piece of land (usually a stone, or a tree). Full definition →

Middle English *landmark ← Old English landmearc ← Proto-West Germanic *landamarku
Ask AI about its historyChatGPTClaudePerplexityGoogle AIGrok

The story

  1. Proto-West Germanic · inherited from*landamarku“boundary, landmark”
  2. Old English · inherited fromlandmearc“boundary”
  3. Middle English · inherited from*landmark
  4. English todaylandmark

From Middle English *landmark, from Old English landmearc (“boundary”), from Proto-West Germanic *landamarku (“boundary, landmark”). Equivalent to land + mark. Cognate with German Landmarke (“landmark”), Danish landemærke (“landmark”), Swedish landmärke (“landmark”), Norwegian landemerke (“landmark”) and Faroese landamark (“land frontier”). Compare also Middle English londes-mark (“boundary”).

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.