The Etymology of Landscape

Landscaping is the act of beautifying a tract of land by shaping its contours and making it an altogether more pleasant space for human recreation. This week, we’re going to look at the etymology of the word “landscape” and see how it evolved into its modern use as both noun and verb.

Anglo-Saxon Origins

The dialect forms landscipe and landscaef are both present in Old English – the language spoken in Britain between the 5th and 12th Centuries of the Current Era. The first syllable, ‘land-’ has not altered in meaning since that time. The second syllable, spelled either ‘-scipe’ or ‘-scaef’, meant ‘to shape’. The word that was to become ‘landscape’ originally referred to ‘Land shaped [for agriculture]’. 

Dutch Influence

At some point between Old English and Early Modern English (16th Century), the word ‘landscape’ fell out of use in England, but a related Dutch word landschap remained popular in Holland and Dutch painters began using it to refer to paintings of rural scenes. The word found currency in this sense and was re-introduced to England as a word for a type of painting of the natural world. 

Landscape Gardening    

The term ‘landscape-gardening’ is first recorded in the 18th Century. At this time, it had the sense of ‘Shaping a garden so it looks like a painting of a rural idyll’. ‘Landscape-gardening’ was shortened to ‘landscaping’ in Victorian times – the word appears as a gerund (a participle verb form acting as a noun) in an article in the July 1861 issue of Gardener’s Monthly which asked “Can landscaping be taught?” The article concluded that landscaping could not be taught. We beg to differ.

Modern Meanings

‘Landscape’ has taken a weirdly circuitous journey to wind up meaning to us pretty much what it meant to the Anglo-Saxons. Along the way, it picked up a secondary meaning of ‘A work of art’ and even a tertiary meaning of ‘Orientation of a picture’ (landscape vs portrait). However, the primary meaning of the noun ‘landscape’ and the verb ‘to landscape’ is very much to do with the shaping of the land to make it comfortable and beautiful by paving, laying lawns, digging ponds and raising beds. All in a day’s work for us at Knight’s Paving and Landscaping Ltd.

If you would like some attention paid to the landscaping of your garden, please get in touch. You can call us on 01603 360548 or email any questions to enquiries@knightslandscaping.co.uk.

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