landsman

plural landsmen · alternative landman

1. A person who does not go to sea, who lacks the skills of a sailor or who is uncomfortable on ships or boats.

   I’ve noticed that these landsmen, nine times out of ten, haven’t the least notion whether the tide’s in or out or where it is.

   1932, Dorothy L. Sayers, chapter XXI, in Have His Carcase

   3 more examples

   So, deprived of one leg, and the strange ship of course being altogether unsupplied with the kindly invention, Ahab now found himself abjectly reduced to a clumsy landsman again; hopelessly eyeing the uncertain changeful height he could hardly hope to attain.

   1851 November 14, Herman Melville, “Leg and Arm. The Pequod, of Nantucket, Meets the Samuel Enderby, of London.”, in Moby-Dick; or, The Whale, 1st American edition, New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers; London: Richard Bentley, →OCLC, page 486

   If the landsman should wish the gang-plank moved a foot farther forward, he would probably say: “James, or William, one of you push that plank forward, please”; but put the mate in his place, and he would roar out: “Here, now, start that gang-plank for'ard! Lively, now! What're you about!..."

   1883, Mark Twain, Life on the Mississippi

   When I returned again to life, the same uproar, the same confused and violent movements, shook and deafened me; and presently, to my other pains and distresses, there was added the sickness of an unused landsman on the sea.

   1886 May 1 – July 31, Robert Louis Stevenson, Kidnapped, being Memoirs of the Adventures of David Balfour in the Year 1751: […], London; Paris: Cassell & Company, published 1886, →OCLC

   Antonyms: seaman

2. oil industryA person who negotiates leases, contracts and other business deals between producers and landowners.
3. A fellow Jew who comes from the same district or town, especially in Eastern Europe.
4. Someone of a similar heritage or belief system.
5. obsoletenauticalA military rank given to naval recruits.

plural Landsmans

1. A surname.