Inland means away from the sea, towards the middle of the land. Drive twenty minutes inland from the beach and the gulls thin out, the air stops smelling of salt, and the fields start. It is the direction you go when you turn your back on the coast.
Inland works as an adverb — head inland, further inland, ten miles inland — and as an adjective in front of a noun: an inland town, an inland sea, inland waterways. Nothing follows it: you go inland, not inland to the hills. An inland sea is a huge lake ringed by land, like the Caspian, and it can be salt water in a country with no coast. The drier second meaning is inside the country rather than abroad, which is why the British tax office was for two centuries the Inland Revenue. Its opposites are coastal, and offshore once you are out on the water.
1adverbinlandIn the direction of the middle of a country, away from the coast.
“They left the harbour at dawn and pushed sixty miles inland before dark.”
2adjectiveinteriorPositioned away from the sea, in the interior of a country.
“The inland villages get harder winters than the fishing ports do.”
synonyms: interior, landlocked
3adjectiveinsideInside one country rather than between countries, said of post, taxes and trade.
“The parcel went at the inland rate, so it cost half what overseas postage would.”
Too few real examples of this word to estimate which sense is commonest.
Inland is two plain English words that grew together. Old English already had inland, simply in plus land, and it came down through Middle English unchanged in shape. The same pairing sits in its neighbours: German Inland, Danish indland, Swedish inland, Dutch binnenland.
Old English
inland
Middle English
inland
English, today
inland
From Middle English inland, inlond, from Old English inland, equivalent to in + land. Compare West Frisian ynlân (“inland”), German Inland (“inland”), Danish indland (“inland”), Swedish inland (“inland”), Norwegian innland (“inland”). Compare also Dutch binnenland.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA