North America

American  

noun

1. the northern continent of the Western Hemisphere, extending from Central America to the Arctic Ocean. Highest point, Denali, 20,300 feet (6,187 meters); lowest, Death Valley, 276 feet (84 meters) below sea level. About 9,360,000 square miles (24,242,400 square kilometers).

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North America British  

noun

1. the third largest continent, linked with South America by the Isthmus of Panama and bordering on the Arctic Ocean, the N Pacific, the N Atlantic, the Gulf of Mexico, and the Caribbean. It consists generally of a great mountain system (the Western Cordillera) extending along the entire W coast, actively volcanic in the extreme north and south, with the Great Plains to the east and the Appalachians still further east, separated from the Canadian Shield by an arc of large lakes (Great Bear, Great Slave, Winnipeg, Superior, Michigan, Huron, Erie, Ontario); reaches its greatest height of 6194 m (20 320 ft) in Mount McKinley, Alaska, and its lowest point of 85 m (280 ft) below sea level in Death Valley, California, and ranges from snowfields, tundra, and taiga in the north to deserts in the southwest and tropical forests in the extreme south. Pop: 332 156 000 (2005 est). Area: over 24 000 000 sq km (9 500 000 sq miles)

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North America Cultural  

1. Third-largest continent (after Asia and Africa), comprising Canada, the United States, Mexico, and Central America.

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Other Word Forms

• North American
  adjective

Etymology

Origin of North America

First recorded in 1680–90

Example Sentences

Fans at the 2026 World Cup in North America had been warned there was a possibility that games could be disrupted by bad weather.

From Barron's • Jun. 23, 2026

U.S. and Canadian soccer fans have come a long way since 1994, the last time North America played host to the World Cup.

From Los Angeles Times • Jun. 23, 2026

But unlike the penalty kick Messi missed in North America 10 years ago in the Copa America, this one didn’t provoke a retirement tantrum.

From The Wall Street Journal • Jun. 22, 2026

In the past several decades, across much of northeastern North America and northern Europe, many freshwater ecosystems are getting darker, and they are changing in other ways as a result.

From Science Daily • Jun. 21, 2026

Until recently, when it was overtaken by Mount Denali in Alaska, it was the most murderous mountain in North America.

From "A Walk in the Woods" by Bill Bryson