Serengeti Plain
- proper noun
- The vast Serengeti Plain offers breathtaking views and is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
Examples
-
The danger of the night before is overcome by the sheer beauty of the place—it really is like the Serengeti Plain.
Fiction book (1993) -
The vast Serengeti Plain stretches beyond.
Academic text (2008) -
We were sitting in his living room, the three of us, eating ice cream and watching a PBS show about lions on the Serengeti Plain.
Fiction book (2001) -
The Serengeti Plain is famous for the annual migration of wildebeest.
-
During our safari, we saw many animals in the Serengeti Plain, including elephants and zebras.
Synonyms
A vast plain in northern Tanzania known for many wild animals and yearly migrations
A large flat area of grass with a few trees in warm places
Surface Forms
Morphology
The name is fully compositional: 'Serengeti' identifies the region and 'plain' denotes an extensive open area, so a learner who knows both constituents will infer it is the plain called Serengeti (a large open area known for wildlife). This place-name + landscape noun pattern is cross-linguistically common and follows normal noun-noun naming conventions, making the meaning transparent to B1 learners who know the parts.
Etymology
Serengeti Plain may come from a Maasai word meaning 'endless plain'. That picture of a wide, flat grassland full of roaming animals explains why the name now means the large area in northern Tanzania famous for the yearly wildebeest migration.