Skip to main content
Glite Dictionary
West Virginia

West Virginia

210 1.0
A state in the eastern United States with mountains and Charleston as capital
  • proper noun
  • /wɛst vɪrˈdʒɪniə/
: Virginia Occidental
  • The firm operates five sawmills, four in West Virginia and another in Kentucky.
  • West Virginia University
  • West Virginia State College
  • Morgantown, West Virginia

But so West Virginia, what kind of terrain would you be looking for?

Autoplay Next

Examples

  • The core business of Hamer Pellet Fuels in Kenova, West Virginia, is lumber.

    Academic text (1996)

  • In 1861, West Virginia broke away from Virginia and chose to remain in the Union.

    Academic text (2017)

  • I have an old family farm house in West Virginia.

    Light Up Night (2020)

  • It's in the middle of nowhere, West Virginia.

    Captain America: Brave New World (2025)

  • I'm a professor of medicine at West Virginia University School of Medicine.

    Vaxxed II: The People's Truth (2020)

  • We just left Harvey, West Virginia.

    The Darkest Minds (2018)

  • This is an Amber Alert message from the West Virginia Patrol Department.

    Hollow Creek (2016)

  • Some of the responses from West Virginia officials reflected the difficult position they were in, legally and otherwise.

    Academic text (2017)

  • The chant swelled across a candle-lit crowd of hundreds of people at West Virginia University late Monday.

    Academic text (2017)

  • I'm a professor of medicine at West Virginia University School of Medicine.

Synonyms

WV
vsWest Virginia
  • US
4 3.4

A short form for West Virginia, a state in the United States

is the full unabbreviated form of that state
W.V.
vsWest Virginia
  • US
4 4.1

A short form for the state West Virginia in the United States

is the full unabbreviated form of that state

Surface Forms

West Virginia main

Morphology

West + Virginia

The place name is a straightforward composition of the direction 'West' and the place name 'Virginia', indicating the western part/region associated with Virginia (now a separate state). Directional + place-name constructions are common cross-linguistically, so a B1 learner who knows 'west' and 'Virginia' will readily infer the meaning.

Etymology

West Virginia was named during the American Civil War when the western counties of Virginia did not want to join the South and chose to form a new state. They used West to show it was the 'western part of Virginia', which is why the name tells you where the state came from today.