New Guinea
Americannoun
noun
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an island in the W Pacific, north of Australia: divided politically into Papua (formerly Irian Jaya, a province of Indonesia) in the west and Papua New Guinea in the east. There is a central chain of mountains and a lowland area of swamps in the south and along the Sepik River in the north. Area: 775 213 sq km (299 310 sq miles)
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(until 1975) an administrative division of the former Territory of Papua and New Guinea, consisting of the NE part of the island of New Guinea together with the Bismarck Archipelago; now part of Papua New Guinea
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New Guinea is the world's second-largest island, after Greenland.
It was named for its resemblance to the Guinea coast of western Africa.
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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.
Gold and gas-driven economic growth in Papua New Guinea, the South Pacific's largest nation, is leaving its people behind, the World Bank said on Thursday.
From Barron's ● Jul. 2, 2026
"We have continued to engage constructively with the Papua New Guinea government since their notification of suspension to have these trade restrictions removed," Collins said.
From Barron's ● Jun. 24, 2026
To conduct the study, researchers sequenced the genomes of 177 people from 12 populations across Near Oceania, the southwestern Pacific region that includes Papua New Guinea, the Bismarck Archipelago, and the Solomon Islands.
From Science Daily ● Jun. 14, 2026
Australia - through public money and philanthropy - is now helping its neighbours, countries like Vanuatu and Papua New Guinea, pursue elimination too.
From BBC ● May 1, 2026
They play with my discarded objects and try to figure out whether they might be useful in New Guinea society.
From "Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies" by Jared M. Diamond
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.
