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

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

South America

As that warm blob of ocean water hugs the coast of South America, it heats the air above, causing the pressure to drop.

From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 22, 2026

Guyana, a small English-speaking country at the northeast corner of South America, is locked in a territorial dispute with neighboring Venezuela over the oil-rich Essequibo region.

From Barron's ● Jul. 21, 2026

That included a 3.4% drop in North America deliveries — U.S.-only deliveries were down 4.3% — and declines in every region except South America, which was flat.

From MarketWatch ● Jul. 21, 2026

The standard explanation is that marsupials reached Australia after traveling from South America through Antarctica, before the ancient supercontinent Gondwana split apart.

From Science Daily ● Jul. 19, 2026

I also loved stories of wolves, bears, and wolverines in North America and Canada, jaguars anacondas and sloths in South America, orangutans, Indian elephants, and tapirs in Asia, and so on.

From "My Life with the Chimpanzees" by Jane Goodall