homeland

UK/ˈhəʊmˌlænd/US/ˈhoʊmˌlænd/

nounB2Common in everyday speech and writing · #3,790 of 15,258neutral

Other forms: homelands

A homeland is the country where you were born or belong. Return to the homeland, defend the homeland, an ancestral homeland.

It is an emotional word rather than a legal one, and it is used by people far from home and by governments wanting that feeling. In apartheid South Africa the homelands were territories where black South Africans were forced to hold nominal citizenship.

Definitions of homeland

1nounhomelandThe country where you were born or belong.B2
“After thirty years abroad, he returned to his homeland to spend his last years there.”

homeland is a country.

Where it comes from

Home plus land, on the model of German Heimatland. The compound is nineteenth-century in English.

From home + land.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practise this word

homeland in the wild

A homeland is a place where a national or ethnic identity has formed.
Homeland
Within the US, an all-hazards approach exists regarding homeland security endeavors.
Homeland security
Commission on National Security/21st Century, said the United States must change how it operates in the area of homeland security.
Homeland security
The current homeland security secretary is Markwayne Mullin, who was sworn in on March 24, 2026.
United States Secretary of Homeland Security
The territory that forms the Assyrian homeland is, similarly to the rest of Mesopotamia, currently divided between present-day Iraq, Turkey, Iran and Syria.
Assyrian homeland

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From Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. These sentences were written by other people about their own subjects; they are here to show the word at work, not as anybody’s opinion.

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