Great Lakes

American  

plural noun

1. a series of five lakes between the United States and Canada, comprising Lakes Erie, Huron, Michigan, Ontario, and Superior; connected with the Atlantic Ocean by the St. Lawrence River.

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Great Lakes British  

plural noun

1. a group of five lakes in central North America with connecting waterways: the largest group of lakes in the world: consists of Lakes Superior, Huron, Erie, and Ontario, which are divided by the border between the US and Canada and Lake Michigan, which is wholly in the US; constitutes the most important system of inland waterways in the world, discharging through the St Lawrence into the Atlantic. Total length: 3767 km (2340 miles). Area: 246 490 sq km (95 170 sq miles)

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Great Lakes Cultural  

1. Group of five large freshwater bodies in central North America. They include, west to east, Lake Superior, Lake Michigan, Lake Huron, Lake Erie, and Lake Ontario. Except for Lake Michigan, which is entirely within the United States, the Great Lakes serve as borders between the United States and Canada.

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Major shipping route through the St. Lawrence River to the Atlantic Ocean.

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

Great Lakes

Lake Ontario is the smallest by surface area of the five Great Lakes, which straddle the border between the United States and Canada.

From Barron's ● Aug. 27, 2026

With little formal education, Mulholland had left his native Ireland in his teens, worked steamer ships on the Great Lakes, labored in lumber camps and prospected for gold.

From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 6, 2026

Aedes albopictus, a much more recent arrival, now has a range that stretches well into New England and the lower Great Lakes and has even been found to overwinter in the Midwest.

From Slate ● Aug. 4, 2026

“Where temperatures are comfortable is across portions of the Great Lakes and Northeast,” NatGasWeather.com says in a note.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 28, 2026

He envisioned an alliance of all the peoples west to the Mississippi, north into the Great Lakes region, and south to the Gulf of Mexico.

From "An Indigenous People’s History of the United States" by Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz