"land forming a border or frontier; an uncertain intermediate region or space," often figurative, 1813, from border (n.) + land (n.).
Entries linking to border-land
border n.
mid-14c., bordure, in heraldry, "broad, colored band surrounding the shield," from Old French bordeure "seam, edge of a shield, border," from Frankish *bord or a similar Germanic source (compare Old English bord "side;" see board (n.2)). The form of the ending changed after c. 1500. Italian and Spanish bordo also are from Germanic.
From late 14c. as "edge, side, brink, margin," also "ornamental border along the edge of a dish, garment, etc." The sense of "boundary of a city or country" is from late 14c. From c. 1400 as "border region, district lying along the boundary of a country" (replacing earlier march). In U.S. history, "the line between the wild and settled regions of the country" (1827).
land n.
Old English lond, land, "ground, soil," also "definite portion of the earth's surface, home region of a person or a people, territory marked by political boundaries," from Proto-Germanic *landja- (source also of Old Norse, Old Frisian Dutch, Gothic land, German Land), perhaps from PIE *lendh- (2) "land, open land, heath" (source also of Old Irish land, Middle Welsh llan "an open space," Welsh llan "enclosure, church," Breton lann "heath," source of French lande; Old Church Slavonic ledina "waste land, heath," Czech lada "fallow land"). But Boutkan finds no IE etymology and suspects a substratum word in Germanic,
Etymological evidence and Gothic use indicates the original Germanic sense was "a definite portion of the earth's surface owned by an individual or home of a nation." The meaning was early extended to "solid surface of the earth," a sense which once had belonged to the ancestor of Modern English earth (n.). Original senses of land in English now tend to go with country. To take the lay of the land is a nautical expression. In the American English exclamation land's sakes (1846) land is a euphemism for Lord.