Skip to main content
Glite Dictionary
Pan American Union

Pan American Union

7.7
An organization that helped countries in the Americas work together before the Organization of American States
  • noun
  • /ˌpæn əˈmɛrɪkən ˈjunjən/
  • Formal
translation icon : Unión Panamericana
  • In 1931, the Pan American Union hosted a conference focused on trade agreements between member nations.

Examples

  • The Pan American Union was established to promote cooperation among countries in the Americas.

  • One of Wallace's pet projects was the creation of an Inter-American Institute of Agricultural Science in Costa Rica under the supervision of the Pan American Union, and the vice president wanted the RF to cooperate with the enterprise by recruiting and funding students for the Institute.

    Academic text (2018)

  • A more extensive project was organized by the U.S. Department of State, MENC, the NEA, and the Pan-American Union.

    Academic text (2007)

  • A more coherent narrative that foregrounds the participation of these figures can be found in Philippe Thoby-Marcelin, Haiti (Washington, DC: Pan American Union, 1959).

    Academic text (2014)

  • The documents were archived at the Pan American Union, which played a key role in regional diplomacy.

Surface Forms

Pan American Union singular
Pan American Unions plural

Morphology

Pan + American + union

The phrase is compositionally built from the prefix 'Pan' (meaning 'all' or 'across') + 'American' + 'union', so its basic sense—an organization uniting countries of the Americas—is inferable from the parts. However, 'Pan' as a prefix may be unfamiliar to an average B1 learner and the expression is a proper name for a specific historical agency, so the precise institutional/historical reference is not fully predictable without prior exposure.

Etymology

The name Pan American Union uses Pan for 'all', American for the countries of the Americas, and Union for a group that works together. So the name gives a simple image: it was an organization to bring 'all' the American countries 'together' to help and cooperate with each other.