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Glite Dictionary
Sandwich Islands

Sandwich Islands

7.7
A former name for the Hawaiian Islands
  • proper noun
  • Literature
translation icon : Islas Sandwich
  • Explorers first arrived in the Sandwich Islands in the late 18th century.

Examples

  • Nowhere is this more apparent than toward the end of the book when he recounts his experiences in the Sandwich Islands.

    Academic text (2005)

  • The culture and beauty of the Sandwich Islands attract many tourists each year.

  • Historical records detail the voyages to the Sandwich Islands during the age of exploration.

Synonyms

Hawai'i
vsSandwich Islands
3 1.0

A US state made of islands formed by volcanoes in the middle of the Pacific Ocean

is the historic geographic name for the islands rather than the political state
Hawaiian Islands
vsSandwich Islands
1 2.9

A group of islands in the central Pacific Ocean that form the US state of Hawaii

is the older historical name for that same island group

Surface Forms

Sandwich Islands main

Morphology

Sandwich + island

This is a historical proper name: it refers specifically to the Hawaiian Islands named after the Earl of Sandwich, not to islands with anything to do with the food 'sandwich'. Knowing 'sandwich' (the food) and 'island' does not let a B1 learner derive the historical referent or meaning, so the expression is not compositionally transparent.

Etymology

Sandwich Islands was the name Captain Cook gave to the islands in 1778 when he named them after John Montagu, the Earl of Sandwich, an important British official who helped the voyage. That's why older maps call them Sandwich Islands, but today the islands are known as 'Hawaii'.