Rotterdam

American  

[rot-er-dam, rawt-uhr-dahm] / ˈrɒt ərˌdæm, ˌrɔt ərˈdɑm /

noun

1. a seaport in SW Netherlands.

2. a town in E New York, on the Mohawk River.

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Rotterdam British  

/ ˈrɒtəˌdæm /

noun

1. a port in the SW Netherlands, in South Holland province: the second largest city of the Netherlands and one of the world's largest ports; oil refineries, shipbuilding yards, etc. Pop: 600 000 (2003 est)

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Rotterdam Cultural  

1. City in the western Netherlands, near the North Sea. Second-largest city in The Netherlands, after Amsterdam, and its major foreign-trade center.

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Discover More

The center of the city was destroyed during World War II by German bombs.

Example Sentences

Bram, his husband, has a demanding job at a museum in Rotterdam and Arnold’s bitterness has grown wearying.

From Los Angeles Times • Jun. 3, 2026

His bombed-out inner life matches his description of Rotterdam so closely that it can’t help but seem like a projection.

From Los Angeles Times • Jun. 3, 2026

Last September, Dutch oil giant Shell shuttered production of its biofuels facility in Rotterdam, which would have produced 820,000 tons of biofuel a year including SAF.

From The Wall Street Journal • Jun. 2, 2026

A venue in Rotterdam turned itself over to fantasy dress-up and gamer fanaticism on the weekend, with thousands attending TwitchCon Europe.

From Barron's • May 30, 2026

Once in the Netherlands, Blake came up with an excuse to make a brief detour to The Hague, a small Dutch city on the North Sea, very close to Rotterdam.

From "Spies: The Secret Showdown Between America and Russia" by Marc Favreau