CALIFORNIA

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does California mean? 

• CALIFORNIA (noun)
  The noun CALIFORNIA has 1 sense:

1. a state in the western United States on the Pacific; the 3rd largest state; known for earthquakes

  Familiarity information: CALIFORNIA used as a noun is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• CALIFORNIA (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

A state in the western United States on the Pacific; the 3rd largest state; known for earthquakes

Classified under:

Nouns denoting spatial position

Synonyms:

CA; Calif.; California; Golden State

Instance hypernyms:

American state (one of the 50 states of the United States)

Meronyms (parts of "California"):

Donner Pass (a mountain pass in northeastern California near Lake Tahoe; site where in 1844 some members of an emigrant party survived by eating those who had died)

San Francisco (a port in western California near the Golden Gate that is one of the major industrial and transportation centers; it has one of the world's finest harbors; site of the Golden Gate Bridge)

San Jose (a city in western California located at the southern end of San Francisco Bay to the south of San Francisco; a center for computer and electronics industries)

San Mateo (a town in California to the south of San Francisco)

San Pablo (a town in western California to the north of Oakland on an arm of San Francisco Bay)

Santa Ana (a city in southern California to the east of Long Beach)

Santa Barbara (a town in southwestern California on the Pacific Ocean)

Santa Clara (a city of west central California; residential area with light industry)

Santa Cruz (a town in western California on Monterey Bay; a tourist center)

Big Sur (a picturesque coastal region of California to the south of San Francisco)

Silicon Valley (a region in California to the south of San Francisco that is noted for its concentration of high-technology industries)

Colorado Desert (an arid region of southeastern California)

Death Valley (a desert area that is part of the Mojave Desert in eastern California and southwestern Nevada; contains the lowest point in North America)

Mohave; Mohave Desert; Mojave; Mojave Desert (a desert area in southern California and western Arizona)

Lake Tahoe (a lake on the border between Nevada and California to the west of Carson City; a popular resort area)

San Diego (a picturesque city of southern California on San Diego Bay near the Mexican border; site of an important naval base)

Golden Gate (a strait in western California that connects the San Francisco Bay with the Pacific Ocean; discovered in 1579 by Sir Francis Drake)

Klamath; Klamath River (a river flowing southwest from Oregon through northern California to the Pacific Ocean)

Monterey Bay (an inlet of the Pacific Ocean in western California)

Russian River (a river in northern California)

Sacramento River (a river in northern California rising near Mount Shasta and flowing south to the San Francisco Bay)

Salton Sea (a saltwater lake in southeastern California)

San Andreas Fault (a major geological fault in California; runs from San Diego to San Francisco; the source of serious earthquakes)

San Fernando Valley (a fertile valley in southern California to the north of Los Angeles; includes many residential communities)

San Joaquin River (a river in central California that rises in the Sierra Nevada and flows northwest to form a large delta with the Sacramento River)

San Joaquin Valley (a vast valley in central California known for its rich farmland)

Mount Shasta; Shasta (a volcanic mountain peak in the Cascade Range in northern California (14,162 feet high))

High Sierra; Sierra Nevada; Sierra Nevada Mountains (a mountain range in eastern California; contains Mount Whitney)

San Bernardino (a city in southern California to the east of Los Angeles)

Channel Islands National Park (a national park in California featuring sea birds and marine life)

Kings Canyon National Park (a national park in California that has giant sequoia trees and alpine lakes and glaciers)

Lassen Volcanic National Park (a national park in California having mountains and volcanic lakes and hot springs)

Redwood National Park (a national park in California featuring a redwood forest and Pacific Ocean coastline)

Sequoia National Park (a national park in California that includes Mount Whitney)

Yosemite National Park (a national park in California famous for its waterfalls and rock formations)

Anaheim (a city in southern California (southeast of Los Angeles); site of Disneyland)

Bakersfield (a city in south central California at the southern end of the San Joaquin Valley)

Barstow (a town in southeastern California)

Berkeley (a city in California on the eastern shore of San Francisco Bay; site of the University of California at Berkeley)

Beverly Hills (a city in southwestern California surrounded by Los Angeles; home of many Hollywood actors)

Chula Vista (an industrial city in southern California (south of San Diego) near the Mexican border)

Eureka (a town in northwest California on an arm of the Pacific Ocean)

Fresno (a city in south central California in the San Joaquin Valley; center of an important agricultural area and gateway to the Sierra Nevada Mountains)

Long Beach (a city in southern California located on 8.5 miles of Pacific beachfront; was a resort until oil was discovered in 1921)

City of the Angels; L.A.; Los Angeles (a city in southern California; motion picture capital of the world; most populous city of California and second largest in the United States)

Monterey (a town in western California to the south of San Francisco on a peninsula at the southern end of Monterey Bay)

Oakland (a city in western California on San Francisco Bay opposite San Francisco; primarily and industrial urban center)

Palo Alto (a university town in California)

Pasadena (a city in southwestern California to the east of Los Angeles)

Redding (a town in north central California on the Sacramento River)

Riverside (a city in southern California)

capital of California; Sacramento (a city in north central California 75 miles to the northeast of San Francisco on the Sacramento River; capital of California)

Domain member region:

Achomawi (a community of Native Americans who speak a Hokan language and live in northeastern California)

Holonyms ("California" is a part of...):

Southwest; southwestern United States (the southwestern region of the United States generally including New Mexico, Arizona, Texas, California, and sometimes Utah and Colorado)

America; the States; U.S.; U.S.A.; United States; United States of America; US; USA (North American republic containing 50 states - 48 conterminous states in North America plus Alaska in northwest North America and the Hawaiian Islands in the Pacific Ocean; achieved independence in 1776)

Derivation:

Californian (of or relating to or characteristic of California or its inhabitants)

 Context examples 

And therein may be the Kalahari's greatest challenge, say scientists Paolo D'Odorico of the University of Virginia and Greg Okin of the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA).

(Sleeping sands of the Kalahari awaken after more than 10,000 years, NSF)

This is the most extreme orbit I have ever seen, said Davide Farnocchia, a scientist at NASA's Center for Near-Earth Object Studies (CNEOS) at the agency's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California.

(Small Asteroid or Comet 'Visits' from Beyond the Solar System, NASA)

A study led by Eleonora Ammannito of the University of California, Los Angeles, finds that clay-forming minerals called phyllosilicates are all over Ceres.

(Ceres' Geological Activity, Ice Revealed in New Research, NASA)

The team waited eagerly as the test results traveled through space, taking 19 hours and 35 minutes to reach an antenna in Goldstone, California, that is part of NASA's Deep Space Network.

(Voyager 1 Fires Up Thrusters After 37 Years, NASA)

"What the devil can I do with a wolf in California?" he demanded.

(White Fang, by Jack London)

"Dark matter is colder than we knew at smaller scales," said Anna Nierenberg of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, leader of the Hubble survey.

(Cosmic Magnifying Glasses Find Dark Matter in Small Clumps, NASA)

You surely don't pronounce such heresies in the University of California?

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)

Researchers from the University of California, Los Angeles, developed a lightweight microscope that attaches to a cell phone.

(Smartphone microscope detects nanoparticles and viruses, NIH)

Loss of water from the rocks of California's Sierra Nevada caused the mountain range to rise nearly an inch (24 millimeters) in height during the drought years from October 2011 to October 2015.

(Sierras Lost Water Weight, Grew Taller During Drought, NASA)

Like most rabbit breeds, the California rabbit is predisposed to developing cancer, especially uterine adenocarcinoma as well as lymphomas, sarcomas, and other carcinomas.

(California Rabbit, NCI Thesaurus)