When the word Palestine first used?

Answer 1

When the Romans occupied the Middle East. approximately 50 bc

true in a way

& yet the Romans didnt actually use the word palestine at all but rather only palaestina & to a lesser extent philistia

& indeed if you arent really asking about the exact word palestine

but are actually also interested in any similar but older words that gave rise to the word palestine then you would have to go back a few centuries earlier than the Romans to the ancient greek word for both palestine & palaestina

which was palaistine

& indeed even a few centuries before that

the ancient Hebrew word for all the above

was already pelesheth or plesheth

but even pelesheth has similar variations in possibly earlier languages

such as akkadian & Egyptian

not to mention the language of the ancient palestinians themselves

in which the word most likely truly originated

albeit in some form that is unknown today

as their name for their homeland itself

or for themselves its people

when they first arrived there some 3200 years ago

if not earlier

but on the other hand

if you really mean the word palestine itself

& will accept no substitutes or ancestors or other near misses

then i have to tell you that palestine itself per se was in fact not widely used if at all in English until the 20th century

indeed it was only revived as a political territorial name in 1920 for the british mandate for palestine

i say revived because the word hadnt really been used much in any form to mean a real living place since the crusades

nineteenth century English much preferred the alternative form of the word

which was & still is philistine

so i think the truest available answers for your question are either shortly before 1920 or else about 1200 bc

depending entirely on what you yourself mean & would perhaps like the answer to be