Formosa

[fawr-moh-suh]

noun

Taiwan.

Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2019

Examples from the Web for formosa

Chinese, Japanese and Malays have traded and warred and treated on the debatable land of Formosa.
Influences of Geographic Environment|Ellen Churchill Semple
Experimental observations on the dissemination of diseases by cockroaches in Formosa.
The Biotic Associations of Cockroaches|Louis M. Roth
They have forty chapels or oratories, twenty schools for boys and girls, and a seminary in the town of Ta-Kow in Formosa.
The Friars in the Philippines|Ambrose Coleman
The vicariate is divided into fourteen districts, half of which are in Formosa.
The Friars in the Philippines|Ambrose Coleman

Do you remember the scarlet Leschenaultia formosa with the sticky margin outside the indusium?
More Letters of Charles Darwin Volume II|Charles Darwin

British Dictionary definitions for formosa

Formosa

noun

the former name of Taiwan

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

Word Origin and History for formosa

Formosa

old name of Taiwan, given by Portuguese, from Portuguese Formosa insula "beautiful island," from fem. of Latin formosus "beautiful, handsome, finely formed," from forma (see form (n.)).