Easter Island

American  

noun

1. an island in the S Pacific, W of and belonging to Chile. About 45 sq. mi. (117 sq. km): gigantic statues.

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Easter Island British  

noun

1. Polynesian name: Rapa Nui.  Spanish name: Isla de Pascua.  an isolated volcanic island in the Pacific, 3700 km (2300 miles) west of Chile, of which it is a dependency: discovered on Easter Sunday, 1722; annexed by Chile in 1888; noted for the remains of an aboriginal culture, which includes gigantic stone figures. Pop: 3791 (2002). Area: 166 sq km (64 sq miles)

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Example Sentences

More unorthodox still is Attia’s rhapsodic ode to rapamycin, a drug derived from an antifungal agent first discovered in the soil of a volcanic crater on Easter Island.

From Slate • Feb. 26, 2026

The first missionary arrived on Easter Island in 1864: By 1868 all the islanders had been baptized.

From The Wall Street Journal • Feb. 20, 2026

The museum has two moai statues which were taken from the Chilean territory of Rapa Nui, or Easter Island, in 1868.

From BBC • Feb. 18, 2024

The vitrines also contain some relatively large stand-alone heads, without bodies, that resemble miniature versions of the giant heads of Easter Island.

From New York Times • Feb. 1, 2024

Unlike Easter Island and other remote Polynesian islands, Greenland could not support a self-sufficient food-producing society, though it did support self-sufficient Inuit hunter-gatherer populations before, during, and after the Norse occupation period.

From "Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies" by Jared M. Diamond