landsman

Alternative Spellings

landsmen

Definitions

• Someone who comes from the same or nearby hometown, especially if one or both of you no longer lives there and all the more so if one or both now live far away from home, in which case an entire region (e.g., metro NY) or country e.g., Poland) may be the point of connection.

Example Sentences

• "Our great-grandfathers were landsmen."
• "B'emet (really), you're from Scarsdale? Well then we're landsmen -- I'm from Teaneck!" (said in Florida)

Languages of Origin

Yiddish

Etymology

לאַנדסמאַן landsman (plural לאַנדסלײַט landslayt)

Who Uses This

Religious: Jews who are engaged in religious observance and have some Jewish education
Older: Jews who are middle-aged and older
Ashkenazim: Jews with Ashkenazi heritage

Regions

North America

Dictionaries

The New Joys of Yiddish, by Leo Rosten and Lawrence Bush (New York, 2003[1968]).
The JPS Dictionary of Jewish Words, by Joyce Eisenberg and Ellen Scolnic, (Philadelphia, 2001).
Dictionary of Jewish Usage: A Popular Guide to the Use of Jewish Terms, by Sol Steinmetz (Lanham, MD, 2005).

Notes

landsman is singular, landsmen is plural.