Spanish Main

American  

noun

1. (formerly) the mainland of America adjacent to the Caribbean Sea, especially the area between the mouth of the Orinoco River and the Isthmus of Panama.

2. the Caribbean Sea: the route of the Spanish treasure galleons and a former haunt of pirates.

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Spanish Main British  

noun

1. the mainland of Spanish America, esp the N coast of South America from the Isthmus of Panama to the mouth of the Orinoco River, Venezuela

2. the Caribbean Sea, the S part of which in colonial times was the route of Spanish treasure galleons and the haunt of pirates

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Example Sentences

Some of the areas on the boil-water list were small, like the Spanish Main Travel Resort, an R.V. park in Hillsborough County, on the western side of the state.

From New York Times • Oct. 1, 2022

The West Indies and the Spanish Main By Anthony Trollope Anthony Trollope, on the way to the West Indies, does complain rather a lot about such mundane troubles as seasickness and so on.

From Salon • Jun. 25, 2012

One says the looting, another marooning, still another sings the praises of pirate grog, and a fourth insists it’s the Spanish Main.

From Scientific American • Mar. 8, 2012

Everything Herndon observes takes place in the "Spanish Main" intermediate school in "Tierra Firma," a thinly disguised middle-class suburb of San Francisco, where Herndon has taught for years.

From Time Magazine Archive

In the same way in a series of half serious, half humorous articles for the paper, he wrote of the picturesque features of piracy on the Spanish Main and along our own Atlantic coast.

From Recollections of a Varied Life by Eggleston, George Cary