South America

American  

noun

1. a continent in the S part of the Western Hemisphere. About 6,900,000 sq. mi. (17,871,000 sq. km).

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South America British  

noun

1. the fourth largest of the continents, bordering on the Caribbean in the north, the Pacific in the west, and the Atlantic in the east and joined to Central America by the Isthmus of Panama. It is dominated by the Andes Mountains, which extend over 7250 km (4500 miles) and include many volcanoes; ranges from dense tropical jungle, desert, and temperate plains to the cold wet windswept region of Tierra del Fuego. Pop (Latin America and the Caribbean): 558 281 000 (2005 est). Area: 17 816 600 sq km (6 879 000 sq miles)

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South America Cultural  

1. Continent in the Western Hemisphere, connected to North America by the Isthmus of Panama.

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All of the Latin American nations in South America and Central America achieved their independence from Spain or Portugal in the first half of the nineteenth century.

Exploration of the continent began in the sixteenth century with the Portuguese claiming what is now Brazil and the Spanish claiming most of the remaining land. Settlement was accompanied by the defeat of many of the Native American cultures, including the Inca Empire.

Other Word Forms

• South American
  adjective

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Example Sentences

See Examples For:

South America

The South America trip will culminate with an emotional homecoming in Peru.

From Barron's ● Nov. 1, 2026

He joined Chevron last year to boost exploration in undeveloped regions of Africa, South America and the eastern Mediterranean.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 29, 2026

“It’s more than 9 degrees warmer off of South America right now,” Reinhard Flick, a researcher at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego, said in an interview.

From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 27, 2026

The researchers reached a different conclusion about mesosaurs, small marine reptiles that lived between 290 million and 274 million years ago in regions now forming parts of South Africa and eastern South America.

From Science Daily ● Oct. 25, 2026

He was like a man who had served a term in prison or had been to Harvard College or had lived for a long time with foreigners in South America.

From "The Heart is a Lonely Hunter" by Carson McCullers

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