Landslide

How to spell landslide

9 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce landslide

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does landslide mean?

1. nounA collapse of earth, rock, or mud sliding down a slope or cliff.
2. nounAn election or contest won by an overwhelming margin.

Landslide in a sentence

• Heavy rain triggered a landslide that blocked the mountain road.

• The party won the election in a landslide that surprised the analysts.

• Engineers reinforced the hillside to prevent another landslide.

• The incumbent expected a comfortable win but was crushed in a landslide.

Where does landslide come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This is a transparent English compound formed from two very old native words. The first element, 'land', goes back to Old English 'land', meaning the solid ground or a stretch of country, and it is shared across the Germanic languages. The second element comes from the Old English verb 'slidan', meaning to glide or slip smoothly along a surface, the same root that gives us the modern verb 'slide'. Joined together, the compound describes a mass of earth and rock slipping down a slope, and it appears in English from the 1800s. The vivid political sense, an election won by a crushing margin, is an American coinage from the same century, picturing a candidate buried under a sliding mass of votes. Because both halves are familiar everyday words, the spelling is mostly straightforward once you remember it is written as a single solid word.

How the word is built

• land (Old English: ground, earth)
• slide (Old English slidan: to glide, slip)