Definitions

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun The state or condition of being landless.

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

landless +‎ -ness

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Examples

  • That must be done without altering the ethnic balance on the ground and without exacerbating landlessness, which is already one of the main sources of tension.

    Balakrishnan Rajagopal: Securing Peace and Human Rights in Sri Lanka 2009

  • On a larger systemic level, landlessness and weak land rights are major complaints of the Maoist rebels who have fomented violence across much of the Indian countryside.

    Tim Hanstad: Bridging the Two Indias Tim Hanstad 2011

  • On a larger systemic level, landlessness and weak land rights are major complaints of the Maoist rebels who have fomented violence across much of the Indian countryside.

    Tim Hanstad: Bridging the Two Indias Tim Hanstad 2011

  • Government of India statistics show that rural landlessness is the best predictor of poverty in India, an even better predictor than illiteracy or low caste.

    Tim Hanstad: Bridging the Two Indias Tim Hanstad 2011

  • Government of India statistics show that rural landlessness is the best predictor of poverty in India, an even better predictor than illiteracy or low caste.

    Tim Hanstad: Bridging the Two Indias Tim Hanstad 2011

  • On a larger systemic level, landlessness and weak land rights are major complaints of the Maoist rebels who have fomented violence across much of the Indian countryside.

    Tim Hanstad: Bridging the Two Indias Tim Hanstad 2011

  • What we've discovered while trying to tackle some of the world's most challenging problems --polio, HIV, malaria, landlessness, generational poverty, malnutrition - is that poverty, sickness, and frustration abroad affects us at home.

    Tim Hanstad: Washington State's Most Important Export: Hope Tim Hanstad 2011

  • Government of India statistics show that rural landlessness is the best predictor of poverty in India, an even better predictor than illiteracy or low caste.

    Tim Hanstad: Bridging the Two Indias Tim Hanstad 2011

  • Government of India statistics show that rural landlessness is the best predictor of poverty in India, an even better predictor than illiteracy or low caste.

    Tim Hanstad: Bridging the Two Indias Tim Hanstad 2011

  • On a larger systemic level, landlessness and weak land rights are major complaints of the Maoist rebels who have fomented violence across much of the Indian countryside.

    Tim Hanstad: Bridging the Two Indias Tim Hanstad 2011

Comments

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  • I first read this word in Moby Dick and fell in love with it. it's got alliteration with the l's. -less and -ness rhyme, but have opposing meanings. it's the perfect little package.

    Plus, the context of the word in chapter 23 of Moby Dick was pretty powerful:

    "But as in landlessness alone resides the highest truth, shoreless, indefinite as God -- so, better is it to perish in that howling infinite, than be ingloriously dashed upon the lee, even if that were safety!"

    April 27, 2011

  • shorelessness; sealessness;

    April 27, 2011