North America

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).

North America

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)

North America

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

Other Words From

• North American adjective noun

Word History and Origins

Origin of North America¹

First recorded in 1680–90

Example Sentences

She was hoping to shift prevailing attitudes toward cooking with blood, a practice that some in North America may dismiss as, in a word, disgusting.

From Washington Post

Many telegraph systems throughout Europe and North America failed, and the electrified lines shocked some telegraph operators.

From Science News

Brookfield owns roughly 70,000 multifamily units in North America, “so we have a lot of doors that need a lot of locks,” Raffaelli says.

From TechCrunch

About one in five people in North America over the age of 40 will develop heart failure.

From TechCrunch

The supply to poorer countries is low mostly because the majority of the available vaccines have been purchased or promised to richer countries in North America and Europe.

From MIT Technology Review

The Yellowstone grizzly is one of the more carnivorous interior bear populations in North America.

From The Daily Beast

She hated sharing Georgie with his admirers, particularly on lecture tours in in North America.

From The Daily Beast

The Germans and Japanese have snatched their customers away in North America.

From The Daily Beast

And by the spring of 2014, the number had reached 14—in North America, Europe, Australia and Thailand.

From The Daily Beast

So New Yorkers took the most valuable 150 square blocks in North America and created Central Park.

From The Daily Beast

Spain is at war with North America, and now offers us this sugar-plum to draw us to her side to defend her against invasion.

From Project Gutenberg

Congress resolved to establish the bank of North America, being the first regularly established bank in the country.

From Project Gutenberg

Most of the seed used is the produce of seed imported at various times from North America and Cuba.

From Project Gutenberg

The continent of North America was then one continued forest.

From Project Gutenberg

This was the first settling of North America, and thirteen years anterior to the landing of the Pilgrims.

From Project Gutenberg