Sierra Leone

[ lee-oh-nee, lee-ohn ]

noun

1. an independent republic in W Africa: member of the Commonwealth of Nations; formerly a British colony and protectorate. 27,925 sq. mi. (72,326 sq. km). : Freetown.

Sierra Leone

/ sɪˈɛərə lɪˈəʊnɪ; lɪˈəʊn /

noun

1. a republic in W Africa, on the Atlantic: became a British colony in 1808 and gained independence (within the Commonwealth) in 1961; declared a republic in 1971; became a one-party state in 1978; multiparty democracy restored in 1991 but military rule was imposed following a coup in 1992, which led to civil unrest; consists of coastal swamps rising to a plateau in the east. Official language: English. Religion: Muslim majority and animist. Currency: leone. Capital: Freetown. Pop: 5 612 685 (2013 est). Area: 71 740 sq km (27 699 sq miles)

Sierra Leone

1. Republic in western Africa , bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the west, Guinea to the north and east, and Liberia to the south. Freetown is its capital and largest city.

Notes

After the American Revolutionary War , attempts were made to settle freed slaves in Sierra Leone. Formerly a British protectorate , Sierra Leone became independent in 1961.

Other Words From

• Sierra Le·one·an [lee-, oh, -nee-, uh, n], noun

Example Sentences

I’m the executive director of Partners in Health, Sierra Leone.

From FiveThirtyEight

Sierra Leone rose 10 places to 75 following the repeal of a decades-old criminal libel law that stifled free speech.

From Time

In Sierra Leone, which lacked health data, the company had to figure out how to correlate information about local school infrastructure to make predictions about the quality of local health centers.

From Fortune

The bats in Sierra Leone carried Marburg virus, Goldstein’s team discovered.

From Science News For Students

Goldstein’s team performed similar work with bats in Sierra Leone.

From Science News For Students

Chernon Bah, co-founder of A World at School, was alarmed by what she witnessed recently in Sierra Leone.

From The Daily Beast

In Liberia, the number is just over 54 percent—Sierra Leone, 67 percent.

From The Daily Beast

In Sierra Leone, the WHO report reads, “steep increases persist.”

From The Daily Beast

“We know the outbreak is still flaming strongly in western Sierra Leone and some parts of the interior of Guinea,” said Nabarro.

From The Daily Beast

The event was a devastating one for Sierra Leone, deemed a “super-spreader” by The New York Times.

From The Daily Beast

My father, who is dead, kept a hotel at Sierra Leone, and he knew the ways of the—half-castes.

From Project Gutenberg

He went out in 1816, and began an extraordinary work amongst the slaves released by British cruisers and landed at Sierra Leone.

From Project Gutenberg

The best measure of the heterogeneousness of the Sierra Leone population is to be found in Mrs. Kilham's vocabularies.

From Project Gutenberg

Of the two settlements, already mentioned, the Gambia is the most deadly; though Sierra Leone has the worst name.

From Project Gutenberg

The condition of the colonists was so appalling that many proposed to return to Sierra Leone.

From Project Gutenberg