Netherlandish

Netherlandish is an historical adjective and demonym that referred to the Netherlands and the broader Low Countries, including its people, culture, language, and artistic tradition. In contemporary English, the form is rarely used outside specific historical or scholarly contexts, where it often appears to designate things associated with the northern and western European region now divided into the Netherlands and Belgium. The standard modern terms are Dutch for the language and for people from the Netherlands, and Flemish for the Dutch-speaking population of Belgium; the broader cultural region is typically described as the Low Countries or the Dutch-speaking world.

In art and scholarship, Netherlandish is especially common in the study of Early Netherlandish painting, the Northern Renaissance school centered in the cities of the Low Countries during the 15th and early 16th centuries. Notable Netherlandish painters include Jan van Eyck, Rogier van der Weyden, Hieronymus Bosch, and later Pieter Bruegel the Elder. The label also appears in discussions of Netherlandish cultural and literary history, though it is less common outside historical contexts; the 1559 painting Netherlandish Proverbs by Bruegel is a representative example of the term's usage.

Historically, the term Netherlandish could refer to the Dutch language as spoken in the Netherlands, but modern usage uses Dutch or Flemish depending on the national or regional context. In contemporary reference works, Netherlandish is typically described as archaic or contextual.