debatable.' name='description'> no-man's-land - definition and meaning

Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun A tract or district to which no one can lay a recognized or established claim; a region which is the subject of dispute between two parties; debatable land. See debatable.
  • noun Same as Jack's land (which see, under Jack).
  • noun A fog-bank.

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

  • noun Alternative spelling of no man's land.

Etymologies

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Examples

  • Obviously the second two thirds of War Horse is set in northern France, where no-man's-land was, and the fields of Flanders and the battleground of the first World War.

    Tom Hiddleston Goes Deep Tom Hiddleston Interview 2011

  • The broad swath of Kenyan no-man's-land east of Garrisa near the Somalia-Kenya border is a lawless place where "the guy who kidnaps you is not the guy who keeps you is not the guy who paid for your kidnapping, and none of them really know each other," opined one friend.

    Ming Holden: Kenya Dispatch: The End of Structure Ming Holden 2011

  • I believe that the Second World War was one of the few worth fighting, while the First World War was a mass slaughter of working people to no purpose whatsoever, people who exchanged Christmas gifts in the no-man's-land between the trenches when they got the chance.

    Archive 2009-11-01 2009

  • Parker creates a desert no-man's-land unique in its corruption, but no less dangerous than the roughest of South Central street corner.

    The Renegades by T. Jefferson Parker: Book summary 2010

  • I wanted a kind of no-man's-land, somewhere indefinable.

    A Conversation with Jane Harris about The Observations 2010

  • But now, following a lawsuit by a couple who were trapped in a no-man's-land in Caledonia, she is singing quite a different tune.

    Archive 2009-11-01 2009

  • Look no further than the Seven Years War of 1756 to 1763 and the Ranger unit raised by Robert Rogers that engaged in the no-man's-land bordered by Lake George and Lake Champlain.

    America's Distinctive Way of War Eliot Cohen 2011

  • In two days, two square miles of wood-framed houses among the trees, built on steep slopes and narrow, winding roads to capture the great views of San Francisco, had been reduced to a no-man's-land of white ash and crumbled debris, pierced by dark spikes of leafless tree trunks among surviving stone steps and totemic chimney towers.

    Following the Flames David Littlejohn 2011

  • Park planners have long worried that St. Nicholas Park, a 23-acre swath of green that runs north-to-south alongside the campus of City College of New York, had become a dodgy no-man's-land after daylight hours and had been looking to add more positive, public use to it.

    Historic Home on the Grange Robbie Whelan 2011

  • A zeppelin scouted no-man's-land at the center of the battlefield, its metal skin sparkling.

    Excerpt: Leviathan by Scott Westerfeld 2009

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