South America

American  

noun

1. a continent in the S part of the Western Hemisphere. About 6,900,000 sq. mi. (17,871,000 sq. km).

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South America British  

noun

1. the fourth largest of the continents, bordering on the Caribbean in the north, the Pacific in the west, and the Atlantic in the east and joined to Central America by the Isthmus of Panama. It is dominated by the Andes Mountains, which extend over 7250 km (4500 miles) and include many volcanoes; ranges from dense tropical jungle, desert, and temperate plains to the cold wet windswept region of Tierra del Fuego. Pop (Latin America and the Caribbean): 558 281 000 (2005 est). Area: 17 816 600 sq km (6 879 000 sq miles)

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South America Cultural  

1. Continent in the Western Hemisphere, connected to North America by the Isthmus of Panama.

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All of the Latin American nations in South America and Central America achieved their independence from Spain or Portugal in the first half of the nineteenth century.

Exploration of the continent began in the sixteenth century with the Portuguese claiming what is now Brazil and the Spanish claiming most of the remaining land. Settlement was accompanied by the defeat of many of the Native American cultures, including the Inca Empire.

Other Word Forms

• South American
  adjective

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

South America

Prior to enforcement escalation in June, the three emergency rooms saw a cumulative weekly average of 1,943 U.S.-born patients and 2,367 foreign-born patients, with the majority hailing from Mexico and Central or South America.

From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 5, 2026

“We were encouraged to go out and see the world in a way that wasn’t necessarily vacation-oriented,” adds Armstrong, whose mother is a retired world-cultures professor and took him on research trips to South America.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 5, 2026

As the equatorial Kelvin wave hits South America, the energy converts into a coastal Kelvin wave, and heads both north and south along the continents.

From Barron's ● Oct. 2, 2026

The northern gentoo of South America showed a different pattern.

From Science Daily ● Sep. 22, 2026

The Beagle rounded the sharp jaw-bend of Tierra del Fuego and climbed the western coast of South America.

From "The Gene" by Siddhartha Mukherjee