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Glite Dictionary
Iwo Jima

Iwo Jima

17 7.0
An island in the western Pacific where a major World War II battle happened
  • proper noun
  • /ˈiːwoʊ ˈdʒiːmə/
: Iwo Jima
  • He flew 38 missions, participating in the preliminaries leading up to the invasion of Iwo Jima, and also in the campaigns in Truk and the Bonin Islands.
  • the Battle of Iwo Jima
  • the flag-raising at Iwo Jima
  • the island of Iwo Jima

You know, the the famous, famous footage of raising the flag at Iwo Jima.

Examples

  • Greeley Wells was one of the Marines who landed on the island of Iwo Jima in February of 1945.

  • The flag raising at Iwo Jima has become an iconic symbol of the Marine Corps.

  • The PIs carry the war crimes discussion to the next site: the Iwo Jima Marine Memorial.

    Academic text (1993)

  • War crimes and the comparison of Serbia to Nuremberg are not always the subject of discussion at Iwo Jima.

    Academic text (1993)

  • But the war had to be won, and Japan was a particularly tenacious opponent: more than 20,000 Americans died at Iwo Jima and Okinawa, and the Japanese defenders suffered far worse fatalities, at least 173,000 dead.

    Academic text (1993)

  • Williams was also wounded during wartime, fighting with US Marines on Iwo Jima during World War II.

Surface Forms

Iwo Jima main

Morphology

Iwo + Jima

This is a proper name (toponym) whose meaning—an island and famous WWII battle—is not compositionally derived from its parts; the provided constituents 'Iwo' and 'Jima' are not English lexical items in the dictionary entry. Even though the name has an etymology in Japanese (roughly 'sulfur island'), that knowledge is not available to a typical B1 learner who only knows English words, so the phrase is unpredictable and not transparently analyzable.

Etymology

Iwo Jima comes from Japanese words: Iwo meaning 'sulfur' and Jima meaning 'island'. The island had active volcanoes and a strong sulfur smell, so people called it the 'sulfur island', and that's why the same name is used today for the island famous for the World War II battle.