North America

American  

noun

1. the northern continent of the Western Hemisphere, extending from Central America to the Arctic Ocean. Highest point, Denali, 20,300 feet (6,187 meters); lowest, Death Valley, 276 feet (84 meters) below sea level. About 9,360,000 square miles (24,242,400 square kilometers).

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North America British  

noun

1. the third largest continent, linked with South America by the Isthmus of Panama and bordering on the Arctic Ocean, the N Pacific, the N Atlantic, the Gulf of Mexico, and the Caribbean. It consists generally of a great mountain system (the Western Cordillera) extending along the entire W coast, actively volcanic in the extreme north and south, with the Great Plains to the east and the Appalachians still further east, separated from the Canadian Shield by an arc of large lakes (Great Bear, Great Slave, Winnipeg, Superior, Michigan, Huron, Erie, Ontario); reaches its greatest height of 6194 m (20 320 ft) in Mount McKinley, Alaska, and its lowest point of 85 m (280 ft) below sea level in Death Valley, California, and ranges from snowfields, tundra, and taiga in the north to deserts in the southwest and tropical forests in the extreme south. Pop: 332 156 000 (2005 est). Area: over 24 000 000 sq km (9 500 000 sq miles)

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North America Cultural  

1. Third-largest continent (after Asia and Africa), comprising Canada, the United States, Mexico, and Central America.

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Other Word Forms

• North American
  adjective

Etymology

Origin of North America

First recorded in 1680–90

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

North America

Paleontologists have identified the first known evidence of Diplodocus outside North America, a discovery that changes scientists' understanding of where the iconic dinosaur lived during the Late Jurassic.

From Science Daily ● Sep. 19, 2026

Since hiring a new head of sales for its North America division in 2024, Zscaler has been making good progress executing this transition, Weed believes.

From MarketWatch ● Sep. 17, 2026

There were 216 healthcare-services deals in North America and Canada in this year’s first half, down from over 1,300 in the whole of 2021, according to data provider PitchBook.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 16, 2026

The BBC's North America editor Sarah Smith explains the two reasons that are keeping the US president from regulating AI.

From BBC ● Sep. 15, 2026

After the end of his expedition, it was a long time before Europeans again reached the Mississippi Valley, but Eurasian microbes were now established in North America and kept spreading.

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