America
- United States.
- North America.
- South America.
- Also called the Americas. North and South America, considered together.
Examples from the Web for america
Contemporary Examples
In the 90s, it kept gay men out of leadership roles in the Boy Scouts of America.
The simple, awful truth is that free speech has never been particularly popular in America.
It would became one of the first great mysteries in the United States of America, as it was only then 23 years old.
Asian-Americans are a group of persuadable swing voters, growing faster than any other group in America today.
Latinos, the fastest growing minority group in America, are even more underrepresented in Congress.
Historical Examples
My field of observation has been at home, here in America; but it has been the same in France.
'Tis Sixty Years SinceCharles Francis Adams
America is the most governed and legislated country in the world!
'Tis Sixty Years SinceCharles Francis Adams
He led America out of revolutionary victory into infant nationhood.
For this we muster the spirit of America, and the faith of America.
And yet we all understand what it is—the spirit—the faith of America.
America
- short for the United States of America
- Also called: the Americas the American continent, including North, South, and Central America
Word Origin
Word Origin and History for america
America
1507, in Cartographer Martin Waldseemüller's treatise "Cosmographiae Introductio," from Modern Latin Americanus, after Amerigo Vespucci (1454-1512) who made two trips to the New World as a navigator and claimed to have discovered it. His published works put forward the idea that it was a new continent, and he was first to call it Novus Mundus "New World." Amerigo is more easily Latinized than Vespucci.
The name Amerigo is Germanic, said to derive from Gothic Amalrich, literally "work-ruler." The Old English form of the name has come down as surnames Emmerich, Emery, etc. The Italian fem. form merged into Amelia.
Colloquial pronunciation "Ameri-kay," not uncommon 19c., goes back to at least 1643 and a poem that rhymed the word with away. Amerika "U.S. society viewed as racist, fascist, oppressive, etc." first attested 1969; the spelling is German, but may also suggest the KKK.
It is interesting to remember that the song which is essentially Southern -- "Dixie" -- and that which is essentially Northern -- "Yankee Doodle" -- never really had any serious words to them. ["The Bookman," June 1910]
FREDONIA, FREDONIAN, FREDE, FREDISH, &c. &c.
These extraordinary words, which have been deservedly ridiculed here as well as in England, were proposed sometime ago, and countenanced by two or three individuals, as names for the territory and people of the United States. The general term American is now commonly understood (at least in all places where the English language is spoken,) to mean an inhabitant of the United States; and is so employed, except where unusual precision of language is required. [Pickering, 1816]
“America”
An American patriotic hymn from the nineteenth century, sung to the tune of the national anthem of Great Britain, “God Save the Queen.” It begins, “My country, 'tis of thee.”