bad lands

2 definitions found

bad lands - Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48 :

  Bad lands \Bad" lands"\
     Barren regions, especially in the western United States,
     where horizontal strata (Tertiary deposits) have been often
     eroded into fantastic forms, and much intersected by
     ca[~n]ons, and where lack of wood, water, and forage
     increases the difficulty of traversing the country, whence
     the name, first given by the Canadian French, Mauvaises
     Terres (bad lands).
     [1913 Webster]

bad lands - WordNet (r) 2.1 (2005) :

  Bad Lands
      n 1: an eroded and barren region in southwestern South Dakota
           and northwestern Nebraska [syn: Bad Lands, Badlands]