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North Platte

North Platte

5.6
A river in western US starting in Colorado and joining the South Platte in Nebraska to form the Platte
  • proper noun
  • /nɔrθ plæt/
translation icon : North Platte

Examples

  • North Platte, it's a city in Nebraska.

  • Many anglers visit the North Platte River to catch rainbow trout each spring.

  • The North Platte flows southeast through Nebraska before joining the South Platte River.

  • The scenic beauty along the North Platte attracts photographers and nature lovers alike.

Synonyms

North Platte River
vsNorth Platte
4.5

A river in central United States that starts in Colorado and joins the South Platte to form the Platte River

describes it as located in the western United States rather than central regions

Surface Forms

Morphology

North + Platte

This is a compositional place name: 'Platte' identifies a river and 'North' specifies its geographic/branching relation, so a learner who knows both words can infer it denotes the northern branch or section of the Platte River. The cardinal + river-name pattern is widely used cross-linguistically, so the meaning is immediately derivable rather than idiomatic.

Etymology

North Platte comes from early French trappers who called the wide, shallow river Platte, a word meaning 'flat'. The word North simply marks it as the northern branch, so today North Platte is the name of that river in the western United States.