Panama Canal
11
2.5
- noun
- /ˈpænəˌmɑː kəˈnæl/
:
Canal de Panamá
- The Panama Canal is a crucial waterway that significantly reduces shipping times between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans.
- Panama Canal Zone
- Panama Canal Treaty
- Panama Canal lock
And it's also been prepared to be shipped out to the launch site down through the Panama Canal to French Guyana.
- And it's also been prepared to be shipped out to the launch site down through the Panama Canal to French Guyana.
- My mother was a Southern Democrat who voted Democrat her whole life until Jimmy Carter gave away the Panama Canal.
- Trump's too intellectually lazy to think about Greenland or the Panama Canal or Canada.
- I mean, in Culebra, I know building the Panama Canal.
- And then somehow I got into that Panama Canal thing you were talking about and they were saying that.
Examples
-
The security of the Panama Canal has been inextricably connected to the defense of Panama.
Academic text (1993) -
Its policy is limited to advocating a peaceful, assured transfer of the Panama Canal to Panamanian sovereignty.
Academic text (1990) -
The key to all this was, and is, the Panama Canal.
Academic text (1993) -
The present security and future of Panama and the Panama Canal after the year 2000 are a case in point.
Academic text (1993) -
The basin of the Panama Canal is one of the regions of greatest urban growth in the country.
Academic text (1993) -
The Panama Canal cuts the time that Pacific ships would need to go to the Atlantic Ocean.
Academic text (2008) -
Post-Panamax ships are too wide to pass through the Panama Canal.
Academic text (2008) -
The opening of the Panama Canal in 1915 capped a century of rising American influence.
Academic text (1998) -
After securing Panamanian independence, the United States entered into a treaty to construct and administer the Panama Canal.
Academic text (2002) -
Plans have been finalized to redesign the Panama Canal to carry the mega ships that now sail the oceans.
Academic text (2008)
Surface Forms
Morphology
The phrase 'Panama Canal' is transparently compositional: it denotes a canal located in Panama, which is directly derivable from 'Panama' (the country) + 'canal' (an engineered water channel). This place-name + noun pattern is cross-linguistically common and follows standard compounding in English, so a B1 learner who knows the constituents will understand the meaning.
Etymology
Panama Canal is a man-made waterway cut through the narrow land of Panama to let ships travel between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans instead of sailing all the way around South America. Workers built large 'locks' that work like water elevators to lift ships between different sea levels, and that is why the canal still makes ocean journeys much faster today.