EURASIA

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does Eurasia mean? 

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

1. the land mass formed by the continents of Europe and Asia

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

 Dictionary entry details 

• EURASIA (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

The land mass formed by the continents of Europe and Asia

Classified under:

Nouns denoting natural objects (not man-made)

Instance hypernyms:

continent (one of the large landmasses of the earth)

Meronyms (parts of "Eurasia"):

Russia (a former empire in eastern Europe and northern Asia created in the 14th century with Moscow as the capital; powerful in the 17th and 18th centuries under Peter the Great and Catherine the Great when Saint Petersburg was the capital; overthrown by revolution in 1917)

Russia; Soviet Union; Union of Soviet Socialist Republics; USSR (a former communist country in eastern Europe and northern Asia; established in 1922; included Russia and 14 other soviet socialist republics (Ukraine and Byelorussia and others); officially dissolved 31 December 1991)

Russia; Russian Federation (a federation in northeastern Europe and northern Asia; formerly Soviet Russia; since 1991 an independent state)

Russia; Russian Soviet Federated Socialist Republic; Soviet Russia (formerly the largest Soviet Socialist Republic in the USSR occupying eastern Europe and northern Asia)

Scythia (an ancient area of Eurasia extending from the Black Sea to the Aral Sea that was populated by Scythians from the eighth to the fourth century BC)

Asia (the largest continent with 60% of the earth's population; it is joined to Europe on the west to form Eurasia; it is the site of some of the world's earliest civilizations)

Europe (the 2nd smallest continent (actually a vast peninsula of Eurasia); the British use 'Europe' to refer to all of the continent except the British Isles)

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

eastern hemisphere; orient (the hemisphere that includes Eurasia and Africa and Australia)

northern hemisphere (the hemisphere that is to the north of the equator)

Derivation:

Eurasian; Eurasiatic (relating to, or coming from, Europe and Asia)

 Context examples 

Now, the discovery of small amounts of Neanderthal DNA in west African people is most likely to reflect genetic backflow into Africa from Eurasia.

(Global human genome study reveals our complex evolutionary history, University of Cambridge)

At that time, the ecosystem was undergoing dramatic climate and tectonic upheavals as Africa collided with Eurasia and the modern East African Rift System formed.

(Fossil discovery in Tanzania reveals ancient bobcat-sized carnivore, National Science Foundation)

The incredibly interesting and unique biota that occurred on this island was totally eradicated at some point as the island reconnected to mainland Eurasia and more cosmopolitan animals were able to access it.

(Fossil discovery adds to understanding of how geological changes affected evolution of mammalian life, National Science Foundation)

Remarkably, the Ancient North Siberians people are more closely related to Europeans than Asians and seem to have migrated all the way from Western Eurasia soon after the divergence between Europeans and Asians.

(DNA from 31,000-year-old milk teeth leads to discovery of new group of ancient Siberians, University of Cambridge)

Researchers have now used ancient protein sequencing – based on ground-breaking technology called mass spectrometry – to retrieve genetic information from the tooth of a 1.77 million year old Stephanorhinus – an extinct rhinoceros which lived in Eurasia during the Pleistocene.

(‘Game-changing’ research could solve evolution mysteries, University of Cambridge)

Scientists found the Ancient North Siberians generated the mosaic genetic make-up of contemporary people who inhabit a vast area across northern Eurasia and the Americas – providing the ‘missing link’ of understanding the genetics of Native American ancestry.

(DNA from 31,000-year-old milk teeth leads to discovery of new group of ancient Siberians, University of Cambridge)