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Glite Dictionary
Lapland

Lapland

3 6.3
A large region in northern Europe above the Arctic Circle where the Sami people live
  • proper noun
translation icon : Laponia
  • The botanical expedition to Lapland, where Linnaeus acquired the costume depicted in this 1775 lithograph, helped establish Linnaeus's image as an explorer and proved critical to his success.

We saw a reindeer browsing, a friend who'd been to Lapland said, finding their own food.

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Examples

  • Hi, I'm Nevin and I'm Erica and we're on our last day of our honeymoon in the Finnish Lapland and it's time to spin the wheel of mythicality.

  • You know, there's a place near the Arctic Circle called Lapland.

    George Washington (2000)

  • So I have a dream of going to Lapland, like proper Lapland.

  • I am currently in Lapland inside the Arctic Circle in Finland.

  • By the age of twenty-five, he had already completed an expedition to Lapland, sponsored by the Royal Society of Science in Uppsala.

    Academic text (2006)

  • I am currently in Lapland inside the Arctic Circle in Finland.

  • Well, I was born in Lapland a long time ago.

  • Did you just come to this country from Lapland, Ron?

Surface Forms

Lapland main

Morphology

Lapland = Lapp + land (transparent) = Lapp + land

A straightforward compound meaning 'land of the Lapps' formed from the ethnonym plus the productive place-name element '-land'.

Etymology

Lapland comes from the old name Lapp, a term once used for the people now called 'Sami', and land meaning 'area' or 'country'. So Lapland means the 'land of the Sami', which is why it names that northern region where many Sami people live.