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Glite Dictionary
Atacama Desert

Atacama Desert

1 5.6
A very dry desert in northern Chile with rich minerals and clear night skies
  • proper noun
translation icon : Desierto de Atacama
  • Mineral resources like nitrate and copper are abundant in the Atacama Desert.
  • Atacama Desert in Chile

Examples

  • Fifteen solar panel vehicles, some that look like small spaceships, raced across Chile's Atacama Desert as part of a contest to build low-cost, environmentally friendly cars.

    Blog text (14)

  • He was very knowledgeable about things to do not only in the Atacama Desert, but also in other parts of Chile.

    Blog text (3)

  • Jammed in the back of a six-seat Cessna Stationair flying low over Peru's Atacama Desert, I felt a rush of air.

    Academic text (2009)

  • The Atacama Desert is famous for its extreme dryness and unique landscape.

  • Tourists often visit the Atacama Desert to experience its stunning starlit skies.

Surface Forms

Atacama Desert main

Morphology

Atacama + desert

This is compositional: the structure ProperName + desert straightforwardly yields 'a desert called Atacama.' Even if a learner does not know the geographic details of the toponym, knowledge of 'desert' and the naming pattern lets a B1 learner infer it is a dry region named Atacama, a cross-linguistically common construction.

Etymology

Atacama Desert takes its name from the native people who lived there, the Atacameños, and their old word Atacama for that harsh land. Because the region has almost no rain and is full of salt and minerals, the name now makes people think of a very 'dry' and 'mineral-rich' desert.