landrace means any local variety of a domesticated animal or plant species that has adapted over time to its ecological and cultural environment (including, in some cases, its work). It carries an Arena rating of 1592, earned across 7 head-to-head judged battles.
Among words judged in Lexicurio's Arena, landrace ranks #2,377 of 17,149 for Most Exacting Words, #2,872 of 17,126 for Most Elegant Words, #5,082 of 17,143 for Best Fossil-Poetry Words, #5,304 of 17,127 for Words That Escaped Their Books.
landrace is pronounced /ˈlændˌɹeɪs/.
Why “landrace” is a great word
A locally adapted variety of a domesticated animal or plant species that has developed over time through adaptation to its specific ecological and cultural environment. From the English words 'land' and 'race', probably a calque of the German 'Landrasse' (from 'Land', meaning "land, country," and 'Rasse', meaning "breed, race"). Unlike a "cultivar," produced and maintained through formal, deliberate human selection, or an "heirloom," a stable, defined lineage preserved for its traditional qualities, a landrace is a mutable, untidy population shaped by the persistent, informal pressures of place. It is the sheep whose wool thickens to the exact gradient of a particular mountain's winter, the barley that remembers the salt-laden winds of its coastal field in every stalk, and the bean that holds within its diverse, unfixed pods the entire history of a village's soil and seasons—not a perfected artifact, but a slow, collective conversation between a community and its home.
Etymology
From land + race, probably a calque of German Landrasse.
noun
- Any local variety of a domesticated animal or plant species that has adapted over time to its ecological and cultural environment (including, in some cases, its work).
Definitions & examples from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 3.0).
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