Iland

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A piece of land completely surrounded by water, an archaic or poetic spelling of the word island
2. An archaic form of island, meaning a stretch of land encircled by sea, lake, or river
3. Old spelling for a mass of land standing alone in the water and surrounded on all sides by it

Etymology: "Iland" is an older spelling of "island," and its history is essentially the history of that word itself. It came into Middle English as "iland" or "yland," descending from the Old English "īġland" or "īeġland," which meant the same thing. Scots kept a parallel form, "iland" or "yland," which shows the spelling was once widespread across the British dialects before the modern form won out. The earlier spelling reflects the Old English pronunciation, in which the initial vowel sound was closer to a "y" or "ee" glide, a trace of which survives in the word's "y-" variants. The second element, "land," is the same word that appears in modern English, so the compound is transparent: a piece of land surrounded by water. Over the centuries the spelling was gradually regularised, and the silent "s" in the modern form was added later by spellers who wrongly connected the word to Latin "insula," a historical mistake that eventually became standard.