Meaning & use
llano
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Meanings
nouncountablespecialist
A wide, level stretch of open grassland with few or no trees, found mainly in Spanish-speaking regions.
Grammar: Plural is llanos: they crossed several llanos.
Patterns
- a llano of something
- across the llano
The train rolled for hours across the llano without passing a single hill.
Cattle grazed on the dry llano beneath a huge empty sky.
From the ridge, the explorers saw a golden llano stretching to the horizon.
nounusually pluralspecialist
The Llanos: the vast tropical grasslands that cover large parts of Venezuela and Colombia.
Grammar: Usually written with a capital and used with 'the': the Llanos.
Patterns
- the Llanos of Venezuela
During the rainy season much of the Llanos floods and becomes a shallow sea of grass.
The cowboys of the Llanos spend weeks herding cattle on horseback.
Capybaras and anacondas thrive in the wetlands of the Llanos.
Word forms
| plural | llanos |
|---|
Common combinations
- vast llano
- A vast llano opened up beyond the last village.
- cross the llano
- It took the herders three days to cross the llano.
- flat llano
- The flat llano made it easy to see a storm coming from miles away.
- the Llanos of Colombia
- Oil workers in the Llanos of Colombia live far from any big city.
- llano grasses
- Fires swept through the llano grasses after the long dry spell.
Synonyms and how they differ
- plain
- 'Plain' is the general English word for flat land anywhere, while 'llano' points to Spanish-speaking regions.
- prairie
- It is the North American term for a grassland, so it would be odd for a scene set in Venezuela.
- savanna
- It means grassland with scattered trees in warm regions, and it is often used for Africa, so it is wider than 'llano'.
- pampas
- It names the particular grasslands of southern South America, especially Argentina, so it is narrower than 'llano'.
Word family
- llanero noun
- a cowboy or inhabitant of the llanos
- Llano Estacado proper noun
- a high plateau in Texas and New Mexico
- llanos noun
- plural of llano
Commonly confused: llano or llama?
llano vs llama
Both begin with 'll', but a llama is an animal, and a llano is a type of land. In Spanish the 'll' sounds like 'y', though English speakers often say an ordinary 'l'.
Practice
Which landscape does 'llano' describe?
Choose one answer.
A llano is a wide, flat plain covered in grass. The other options describe landscapes with mountains, ice or thick trees, which are the opposite of an open llano.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “llano”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.