Great Britain
76
1.1
- proper noun
- /ɡreɪt ˈbrɪtən/
:
Gran Bretaña
- I grew up in in Wales, which is part of Great Britain, but not England.
- United States and Great Britain
- economic ties with Great Britain
- treaties with Great Britain
Together, we can make Great Britain greater still.
- Together, we can make Great Britain greater still.
- I think Great Britain doesn't include Ireland.
- He was a youth player for, for Great Britain, or was it England?
- John McCluskey, who became the flyweight champion of Great Britain, amateur and professional.
- She's written books on slavery, on the reception of classics in Great Britain and also in India.
- While the US, France and Great Britain secretly tried to appease the situation.
- And this was all about social factions in Great Britain.
- That's just under the GDP of Great Britain.
- Today we're going to talk about the changing shape of Great Britain.
- What would your vision for a United Kingdom be or a Great Britain?
- So much so that you decide you're going to swim the length of Great Britain and you have like no swim training.
Examples
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I'm appointed ambassador to Great Britain.
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Our condolences go out to all of you folks throughout Great Britain and the Commonwealth.
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It's time to put the "Great" back into Great Britain!
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Look, sir, Great Britain is a small country, it's much smaller than yours.
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The United States and Great Britain began to apply economic and political sanctions.
Academic text (1990) -
There could be no peace unless Great Britain recognized American independence.
Fiction book (1994) -
Fifteen minutes later, she discovered that she had been born in Great Britain.
Fiction book (1996) -
Great Britain gets back the 13 original colonies, minus Manhattan.
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As president, he was forced to fight another war against Great Britain to uphold America's rights at sea.
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I grew up in Wales, which is part of Great Britain, but not England.
Synonyms
487
1.0
A country in northwest Europe made of England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland
11
1.8
The large island that contains England, Scotland, and Wales
Surface Forms
Morphology
The name 'Great Britain' is compositional: 'Britain' identifies the place and 'Great' signals the larger/main Britain, so a learner who knows both words can infer it refers to the (larger) island comprising England, Scotland, and Wales. This pattern is common cross-linguistically (e.g., Spanish 'Gran Bretaña', French 'Grande-Bretagne'), making the term predictable to B1 learners.
Etymology
Great Britain got its name because people wanted to show the big island called Britain, so they added Great to mean 'larger' and to tell it apart from Brittany in France. That's why Great Britain now means the large island made up of England, Scotland, and Wales.