downland

down +‎ land

downland (plural downlands)

1. (Britain) An area of rolling downs, often grassy pasture over chalk or limestone.
   • 1789, Ann Ward Radcliffe, The Castles of Athlin and Dunbayne, London: T. Hookham, Chapter 4, p. 93,

     Hail! every distant hill, and downland plain!

     Your dew-hid beauties Fancy oft unveils;

   • 1850, Charles Dickens, David Copperfield, Chapter ,

     […] I walked on to Canterbury early in the morning. It was now winter again; and the fresh, cold windy day, and the sweeping downland, brightened up my hopes a little.

   • 1898, Thomas Hardy, “My Cicely” in Wessex Poems and Other Verses, New York: Harper, p. 126,

     I traversed the downland

     Whereon the bleak hill-graves of Chieftains

     Bulge barren of tree;

   • 1958, Muriel Spark, Robinson, New York: New Directions, 2003, Chapter 6, p. 66,

     I was surprised to see that the plane had been wrecked, not on one of the hefty cliff faces of our mountain, but on a gentle green hillside, merging into downland.

   • 2010, Howard Jacobson, The Finkler Question, New York: Bloomsbury, Chapter 12, p. 278,

     He drank another whisky then left the pub and climbed slowly up the downlands, bent as the trees and shrubs were bent.

• land

• downland on Wikipedia.Wikipedia