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Glite Dictionary
South Carolina

South Carolina

199 1.0
A state in the southeastern United States
  • proper noun
  • /ˌsaʊθ kɑrɪˈlaɪnə/
translation icon : Carolina del Sur
  • Robert Loy lives in South Carolina with his wife and four children.
  • state of South Carolina
  • University of South Carolina
  • governor of South Carolina

I'd rather be in Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina, or Ohio, right here.

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Examples

  • But if you want a challenge, if you want to try something difficult, if you want to try to achieve the impossible, You try 13 weeks of hell at Parris Island, South Carolina.

    Born on the Fourth of July (1989)

  • Wendell lives in Wisacky, South Carolina.

    The Killing Fields (1984)

  • My, my home state, South Carolina, is on that list.

  • Plus he was from my home... in South Carolina.

    Personal Problems (1980)

  • - You remember when I first came up here from South Carolina?

    Hoodlum (1997)

  • My parents drove all the way to South Carolina to pick me up.

    Fiction book (1993)

  • Born in South Carolina, graduated West Point.

    Swat: Unit 887 (2015)

  • Unlike the situation in many other states, educational reform in South Carolina has embraced the arts.

    Academic text (1990)

  • Fripp Island is one of the sea islands off the coast of South Carolina.

    Fiction book (1996)

  • I was born and raised in South Carolina, where the landscape is beautiful.

Synonyms

Palmetto State
vsSouth Carolina
1 6.8

A nickname for South Carolina because of its palmetto tree

is the official state name rather than an informal nickname
S.C.
vsSouth Carolina
3.5

A state in the southeast of the United States

is the full official state name rather than the short written form

Surface Forms

South Carolina main

Morphology

South + Carolina

This is a compositional place name: 'South' indicates the southern part or region and 'Carolina' is a place name, so the combined meaning (the southern Carolina region / the U.S. state) is directly derivable from the parts. The pattern 'South + [place]' is cross-linguistically common and follows a predictable modifier + noun structure, so a B1 learner who knows the constituents would understand it.

Etymology

The name South Carolina comes from Carolina, a word given to the land to honour the English king 'Charles' and first meant 'Charles's land'. South was added when the colony split, so South Carolina means the southern part of 'Carolina'.