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Kansas

American  
[kan-zuhs] / ˈkæn zəs /

noun

  1. a state in the central United States: a part of the Midwest. 82,276 sq. mi. (213,094 sq. km). Topeka. KS (for use with zip code), Kans., Kan., Kas.

  2. a river in northeastern Kansas, flowing east to the Missouri River. 169 miles (270 km) long.

Kansas British  
/ ˈkænzəs /

noun

  1. Abbreviation: Kan.   Kans.   KS.  a state of the central US: consists of undulating prairie, drained chiefly by the Arkansas, Kansas, and Missouri Rivers; mainly agricultural. Capital: Topeka. Pop: 2 723 507 (2003 est). Area: 213 096 sq km (82 277 sq miles)

"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
Kansas Cultural  

  1. State in the central United States bordered by Nebraska to the north, Missouri to the east, Oklahoma to the south, and Colorado to the west. Its capital is Topeka, and its largest city is Wichita.

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In the 1850s, the state came to be known as “bleeding Kansas” because of the violence between hostile free-staters and pro-slavery settlers.

Example Sentences

Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.

Chair Jerome Powell, Kansas City Fed President Jeffrey Schmid, and St. Louis Fed President Alberto Musalem have all warned in the past few weeks that longer term expectations could drift higher if inflation stays elevated.

From Barron's • Apr. 8, 2026

Short-term rentals in Kansas City are being booked in advance at a faster rate than in the other U.S. hosts, a January report from Airbnb data platform AirROI showed.

From The Wall Street Journal • Apr. 6, 2026

The Kansas City metro area, with about 2.2 million residents, is the smallest of the 16 cities hosting in the U.S.,

From The Wall Street Journal • Apr. 6, 2026

Kansas City and the other 10 U.S. host cities are contending with challenges that didn’t exist when North America was awarded the World Cup in 2018.

From The Wall Street Journal • Apr. 6, 2026

Later, John Palmer, the half-Sioux lawyer, sent a letter to Charles Curtis, a U.S. senator from Kansas; part-Kaw, part-Osage, Curtis was then the highest official with acknowledged Indian ancestry ever elected to office.

From "Killers of the Flower Moon" by David Grann

Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023

Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.