Strait of Messina
- proper noun
:
Estrecho de Messina
- In Italy, hundreds gather for a series of swimming and cultural events celebrating the Strait of Messina, a narrow stretch of water between Sicily and the mainland.
- Strait of Messina divides Sicily
Examples
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Many believe that this legendary warning was rooted in the real dangers of a rock shoal on one side and a whirlpool on the other side of the Straits of Messina, near Sicily.
Blog text (18) -
He is to cross the Strait of Messina and reconquer Italy from the Ostrogoths.
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He is to cross the Strait of Messina and reconquer Italy from the Ostrogoths.
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Immediately below the island of Sicily, two boats sail from right to left through the Strait of Messina (Fig. 5), leaving Sicily to join the other route from Otranto to Acre.
Academic text (1999) -
The ferry travels daily across the Strait of Messina, connecting Sicily to the mainland of Italy.
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During our trip, we sailed through the Strait of Messina, enjoying views of both Sicily and the Italian coast.
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The Strait of Messina is known for its strong currents and beautiful landscapes that attract many tourists.
Surface Forms
Morphology
The meaning is directly compositional: a 'strait' is a narrow sea channel and 'of Messina' locates which strait, so a learner who knows these words can infer it is the narrow channel by Messina. Place-name constructions of the form 'X of Y' are common cross-linguistically and thus readily interpretable by B1 learners who know the constituents.
Etymology
Strait of Messina comes from the town Messina and the word strait, which means a 'narrow sea passage'. The image is of a thin channel of water between the island of Sicily and the Italian mainland, so the name simply means the sea route that 'separates' the two lands.
