Woodland

Forms: see WOOD sb.¹ and LAND sb. Land covered with wood, i.e., with trees; a wooded region or piece of ground.

869.  in Birch, Cartul. Sax., II. 141. Æʓþer ʓe etelond ʓe eyrð lond ʓe eac wudulond.

c. 1205.  Lay., 1699. Wenne hundes hine bistondeð i þon wode-londe.

a. 1400.  Sir Perc., 208. In that wodde land.

1456.  Sir G. Haye, Gov. Princes, Wks. (S.T.S.), II. 137. Cow or calf … in wodland upbrocht.

1536.  Benese, Meas. Land, A ij. Woodlande and fyldelande be not measured with perches of lyke and equale length.

1573.  Tusser, Husb. (1878), 31. What champion vseth, That woodland refuseth.

1610.  Holland, Camden’s Brit., 567. In the mids of this Woodland standeth Coventrey.

1622.  Selden, Illustr. Drayton’s Poly-olb., xiii. 15. What is now the Woodland in Warwickshire, was heretofore part of a larger Weald or Forest, called Arden.

1669.  Worlidge, Syst. Agric. (1681), 88. There’s no Field Champion-Land of that yearly value for either Corn or Pasture, as is the Wood-land.

1709.  Prior, Henry & Emma, 307. She to the Wood-land with an Exile ran.

1763.  W. Roberts, Nat. Hist. Florida, 34. The number of marshes and woodlands prevented the horse from pursuing them.

1793.  M. Cutler in Life, etc. (1888), II. 276. Tracts of woodland never yet cleared, but kept inclosed for a supply of fuel and timber.

1824.  W. Irving, T. Trav., II. iv. I. 214. A hunting-seat of Queen Elizabeth,… when the neighbourhood was all woodland.

1867.  ‘Ouida,’ Cecil Castlemaine, i. The morning was fair and cloudless, its sunbeams piercing through the darkest glades in the woodlands.

  b.  attrib. Of or pertaining to woodland; used, situated, dwelling or growing in woodland; consisting of or containing woodland; belonging to or characteristic of woodland; sylvan.

  † Woodland penny, silver = wood-penny, -silver: see WOOD sb.¹ 10.

1351–2.  Durham Acc. Rolls (Surtees), 552. vij li. iij s. i d. de Wodeland penys ad festum Nat. beati Joh. Bap. Ibid. (1396–7), 136. Ep’o pro Wodlandsiluer, vj d. Ibid. (1536–7), 674. Pro Wodlandpennez ejusdem ville.

1536.  Benese, Meas. Land, A ij. Two maner of perches, the woodlande perche and the fyldeland perche…. The woodlande perche is communely .xviii. foote in length. But in some places it is longer.

1577.  Harrison, England, III. xii. 111 b/1 in Holinshed. Adders … are found only in our woodland countryes and highest groundes.

1601.  Shaks., All’s Well, IV. v. 49. I am a woodland fellow sir, that alwaies loued a great fire.

1610.  Hopton, Baculum Geodæt., VI. lii. 264. The woodland measure of 18 feete in the pole.

1697.  Dryden, Virg. Georg., IV. 783. Adore the Woodland Pow’rs with Pray’r.

1725.  Pope, Odyss., IX. 178. Rows’d by the woodland nymphs … The mountain goats came bounding o’er the lawn.

1798.  Wordsw., Tables Turned, iii. Come, hear the woodland linnet. Ibid., We are Seven, iii. She had a rustic, woodland air.

1805.  Scott, Last Minstrel, III. xiii. They came to a woodland brook. Ibid. (1831), Quentin D., Introd. in the more woodland districts of Flanders.

1855.  Kingsley, Westw. Ho! xxv. Garments … rather the worse for a fortnight’s woodland travel.

1855.  Tennyson, Maud, I. XII. ii. Gathering woodland lilies.

1877.  Black, Green Past., i. The secrecy and silence of the still woodland ways.

1879.  Cassell’s Nat. Hist., III. 68. The Woodland Caribou and the Barren-ground Caribou are the names given to a larger and a smaller breed in Canada.

1902.  Cornish, Naturalist Thames, 76. The [grey] partridge is becoming a woodland bird.

  Hence Woodlander, an inhabitant of the woodland; occas. an animal that lives in woodland.

1774.  T. West, Antiq. Furness (1805), 40. The woodlanders of High Furness were charged with the care of the flocks and herds.

1810.  Wordsw., Prose Wks. (1876), II. 259. A few vassals following the employment of shepherds or woodlanders.

1887.  T. Hardy (title), The Woodlanders.

1889.  F. A. Knight, By Leafy Ways, 61. Here and there another much calumniated woodlander, the badger, has come out for his evening stroll.