West Indies
4
3.0
- proper noun
- /wɛst ˈɪndiːz/
:
Indias Occidentales
- The Brooklyn Museum also contained the watercolors that John Singer Sargent had brought back from the West Indies.
- the British West Indies
- the French West Indies
- the University of the West Indies
That Brown could also provide financial aid for students from Africa and the West Indies who at that point were not eligible for need blind admission.
- That Brown could also provide financial aid for students from Africa and the West Indies who at that point were not eligible for need blind admission.
- I'm the one in charge of all the transports from the South America or West Indies to Europe, and which I was.
- The English had a huge blockade on the French sugar that was coming from the West Indies couldn't make it to France.
- You do it only from the West Indies to France, because it's the one way, it's a direct way, OK.
Examples
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- Were you born in the West Indies?
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US DEA fears the drug is on its way to this country via various conduits in Jamaica and throughout the West Indies.
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But we're not moving to the West Indies with you.
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Captain George East has just arrived from the West Indies.
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Were you born in the West Indies?
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That's why people like me live in the West Indies.
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Listen to the music that has come out of Harlem and the West Indies.
Academic text (1995) -
Munroe is a longtime professor of political science at the University of the West Indies.
Academic text (1998) -
Afro-Antilleans in Bocas del Toro are descendants of black slaves from the British West Indies and more recent waves of migration.
Academic text (2006) -
The tournament in the West Indies is set to begin today.
Synonyms
A group of islands in the Caribbean popular with tourists
A region of islands and sea near Central and South America
Surface Forms
Morphology
West + Indies
The name is compositional in form — 'West' qualifying 'Indies' — so if a learner knows 'Indies' as a historical term for the lands/ islands called the Indies, they could infer it means the Indies located to the west (i.e., the Caribbean). However, 'Indies' is archaic/lexicalized and requires historical or cultural knowledge that many B1 learners lack, so the relation is only partially transparent.
Etymology
West Indies comes from early explorers like Columbus, who thought they had reached 'Asia' and called the islands the Indies. Because these islands were west of Asia, people added West to tell them apart from the 'East Indies', and that's why the name now means the Caribbean islands.