Maria
noun
Maria
1 American
[muh-ree-uh]
/ məˈri ə /
noun
Maria
2
American
[muh-ree-uh, -rahy-uh, mah-ree-ah]
/ məˈri ə, -ˈraɪ ə, mɑˈri ɑ /
noun
maria
British
/ ˈmɑːrɪə /
noun
Etymology
Origin of Maria
Shortening of Santa Maria ( def. ).
Vocabulary lists containing maria
Space Science (Astronomy) - Middle School
Looking to grow your vocabulary? Check out this interactive, curated word list from our team of English language specialists at Vocabulary.com – one of over 17,000 lists we've built to help learners worldwide!
The Moon - Middle School
Interested in learning more words like this one? Our team at Vocabulary.com has got you covered! You can review flashcards, quiz yourself, practice spelling, and more – and it's all completely free to use!
Space Science (Astronomy) - High School
Want to remember this word for good? Start your learning journey today with our library of interactive, themed word lists built by the experts at Vocabulary.com – we'll help you make the most of your study time!
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.
See Examples For:
Powerless to help after catastrophic earthquakes struck her hometown of La Guaira in Venezuela two months ago, Maria Medina struggled to sleep.
From BBC ● Aug. 29, 2026
Santa Barbara is expected to reach 85 degrees, and Santa Maria 86 degrees.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 26, 2026
Maria Lewis, 34, from Weston-super-Mare, has lived with heavy menstrual bleeding since she first started menstruating and was diagnosed with endometriosis last year.
From BBC ● Aug. 26, 2026
In recent months, Leonardo Maria Del Vecchio had sought to become Delfin's dominant shareholder by buying out the stakes held by his brother Luca and his sister Paola.
From Barron's ● Aug. 25, 2026
Maria Martinez asked Patience, the camera lights bright in the dark parking lot.
From "Two Degrees" by Alan Gratz
The research team set out to systematically map these ridges across the lunar maria and investigate their role in recent tectonic activity.
From Science Daily ● Feb. 18, 2026
"Our detection of young, small ridges in the maria, and our discovery of their cause, completes a global picture of a dynamic, contracting moon," Watters said.
From Science Daily ● Feb. 18, 2026
It has a thicker crust, more craters and fewer maria, or plains where lava once flowed.
From New York Times ● Jun. 2, 2024
This result is similar to the age determined for the maria from radioactive dating of returned samples—3.3 to 3.8 billion years old.
From Textbooks ● Oct. 13, 2016
On the back, there are no smooth maria, but only highlands which have been scarred by the impact of meteorites over billions of years.
From "Flying to the Moon: An Astronaut's Story" by Michael Collins
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.
