Etymology Journal ยท L
Land sakes!
Meaning
- A quaint, polite exclamation used to show mild surprise or dismay. It is mostly used by older generations to react to small accidents or news.
Whimsical, grandmotherly
Used in a sentence
- Land sakes, you scared me coming in through the back door like that!
- Land sakes, did it really rain that much last night?
- Land sakes, that boy has grown three inches since I last saw him.
The backstory
This is a contraction of 'for the sake of the land' or 'for land's sake'. It was a way to express alarm without swearing, common in rural America.
Heard in
The South, Midwest
Vibe check