no mans land
Between opposing trenches
No man's land is territory that belongs to no one or that no one dares occupy—originally the contested ground between opposing trenches in World War I, swept by fire from both sides.
The term extends to any ambiguous zone between established boundaries: The proposal exists in a no man's land between legal and illegal.
Also spelled no-man's-land.
- wastelandUninhabitable barren region
- trenchesElongated ground excavations
- over the topExcessively theatrical or extreme
- battlefieldCombat engagement area
- killing fieldMass execution location
barren · desolate · DMZ · buffer · void · limbo · grey area · middle ground · warzone · war torn · shell · crater · barbed wire · neutral · border crossing · abandoned · frontline · mud
- neutral zonesbuffer zone, DMZ, demilitarized zone, neutral zone, neutral ground
- WWItrenches, trench warfare, armistice, doughboys, over the top
- bordersborder, boundary, border crossing, national borders, boundary line
- hinterlandshinterland, hinterlands, backcountry, back country, backwoods
- remote placesremote, distant, far, faraway, afar
- battlefieldsGettysburg, Waterloo, front lines, Antietam, frontline
no mans landsovereign territory
Land under autonomous control
homeland · occupied territory · national territory · dominion · possession
no mans landcommon ground
Points of agreement
solid ground · firm footing · certainty · black and white · home turf
man, land, mans, woman, women, manly, manliness, manhood, unmanned