Pearl Harbor

noun

1. a harbor near Honolulu, on S Oahu, in Hawaii: surprise attack by Japan on the U.S. naval base and other military installations December 7, 1941.

2. any significant or crippling defeat, betrayal, loss, etc., that comes unexpectedly.

Pearl Harbor

noun

1. an almost landlocked inlet of the Pacific on the S coast of the island of Oahu, Hawaii: site of a US naval base attacked by the Japanese in 1941, resulting in the US entry into World War II

Pearl Harbor

1. A major United States naval base in Hawaii that was attacked without warning by the Japanese air force on December 7, 1941, with great loss of American lives and ships. In asking Congress to declare war on Japan the next day, President Franklin D. Roosevelt described the day of the attack as “a date which will live in infamy.”

Example Sentences

In the months after Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor, the U.S.

Read more on The Wall Street Journal

She was re-elected to Congress in 1941 and argued against America joining the fight in World War II. But the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor later that year galvanized the country.

Read more on The Wall Street Journal

He informed Hitler of his fears a week before the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor and may have repeated the message when he visited Hitler’s field headquarters near Rastenburg in February 1942.

Read more on The Wall Street Journal

On December 7, 1941, Japanese kamikaze fighter planes, dive bombers, and torpedo bombers attacked Pearl Harbor in Hawaii.

Read more on Literature

If you remember Pearl Harbor, call it a dress rehearsal.

Read more on MarketWatch