Rhodesia

American  

[roh-dee-zhuh] / roʊˈdi ʒə /

noun

1. (asSouthern Rhodesia ) a former British colony in southern Africa: declared independence 1965; name changed to Zimbabwe 1979.

2. a historical region in southern Africa that comprised the British territories of Northern Rhodesia (nowZambia ) and Southern Rhodesia (nowZimbabwe ).

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Rhodesia British  

/ rəʊˈdiːʃə, -zɪə /

noun

1. a former name (1964–79) for Zimbabwe

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Rhodesia Cultural  

1. Former name of Zimbabwe, a nation in southeastern Africa.

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Discover More

Rhodesia was named for Cecil Rhodes, the English industrialist whose British South Africa Company colonized the region at the end of the nineteenth century. He also founded the Rhodes Scholarships for study at Oxford University.

Other Word Forms

• Rhodesian
  adjective

Example Sentences

Rhodes went on to found De Beers, the diamond-mining behemoth, and became so influential that Rhodesia bore his name before it became Zimbabwe.

From The Wall Street Journal • Nov. 22, 2025

In the 1970s, Beijing built the Tazara Railway from landlocked Zambia to Tanzania’s Dar es Salaam port, allowing copper exports to circumvent white-minority-ruled Rhodesia and apartheid South Africa.

From Washington Times • Mar. 31, 2023

In addition, Portugal objected that it controlled the land between its colonies of Angola and Mozambique, encompassing much of what Rhodes claimed as part of Rhodesia.

From Textbooks • Dec. 14, 2022

With a death cry of "my bones will surely rise", Nehanda became an increasingly potent symbol for those fighting against white-minority rule in what was then known as Rhodesia from the late 1960s.

From BBC • Oct. 29, 2022

In Rhodesia, for example, the young of an important food fish, the Kafue bream, are killed by exposure to only 0.04 parts per million of DDT in shallow pools.

From "Silent Spring" by Rachel Carson