ISRAEL

Pronunciation (US):

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IPA (US):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does Israel mean? 

• ISRAEL (noun)
  The noun ISRAEL has 2 senses:

1. Jewish republic in southwestern Asia at eastern end of Mediterranean; formerly part of Palestine

2. an ancient kingdom of the Hebrew tribes at the southeastern end of the Mediterranean Sea; founded by Saul around 1025 BC and destroyed by the Assyrians in 721 BC

  Familiarity information: ISRAEL used as a noun is rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• ISRAEL (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Jewish republic in southwestern Asia at eastern end of Mediterranean; formerly part of Palestine

Classified under:

Nouns denoting spatial position

Synonyms:

Israel; Sion; State of Israel; Yisrael; Zion

Instance hypernyms:

country; land; state (the territory occupied by a nation)

Meronyms (parts of "Israel"):

Mount Carmel (a mountain range in northwestern Israel near the Mediterranean coast)

Dead Sea (a saltwater lake on the border between Israel and Jordan; its surface in 1292 feet below sea level)

Negev; Negev Desert (a desert in southern Israel)

Haifa; Hefa (a major port in northwestern Israel)

Tel Aviv; Tel Aviv-Jaffa; Tel Aviv-Yalo (the largest city and financial center of Israel; located in western Israel on the Mediterranean)

Gomorrah; Gomorrha ((Old Testament) an ancient city near the Dead Sea that (along with Sodom) was destroyed by God for the vice and depravity of its inhabitants)

Sodom ((Old Testament) an ancient city near the Dead Sea that (along with Gomorrah) was destroyed by God for the wickedness of its inhabitants)

Caesarea (an ancient seaport in northwestern Israel; an important Roman city in ancient Palestine)

capital of Israel; Jerusalem (capital and largest city of the modern state of Israel (although its status as capital is disputed); it was captured from Jordan in 1967 in the Six Day War; a holy city for Jews and Christians and Muslims; was the capital of an ancient kingdom)

Golan; Golan Heights (a fortified hilly area between southern Lebanon and southern Syria)

Gaza; Gaza Strip (a coastal region at the southeastern corner of the Mediterranean bordering Israel and Egypt)

Galilee (an area of northern Israel; formerly the northern part of Palestine and the ancient kingdom of Israel; the scene of Jesus's ministry)

West Bank (an area between Israel and Jordan on the west bank of the Jordan river; populated largely by Palestinians)

Accho; Acre; Akka; Akko (a town and port in northwestern Israel in the eastern Mediterranean)

Meronyms (members of "Israel"):

Israeli (a native or inhabitant of Israel)

Domain member region:

al-Asifa; al-Fatah; Fatah (a Palestinian political and military organization founded by Yasser Arafat in 1958 to work toward the creation of a Palestinian state; during the 1960s and 1970s trained terrorist and insurgent groups)

General Security Services; Shin Bet (the Israeli domestic counterintelligence and internal security agency)

Mossad (the Israeli foreign intelligence agency)

A'man (the Israeli military intelligence which produces comprehensive national intelligence briefings for the prime minister and the cabinet)

sayeret; Sayeret Mat'kal; Sayeret Matkal (Israel's elite secret commando unit responsible for counterterrorist and top secret intelligence gathering and hostage rescue missions)

IDF; Israeli Defense Force (the ground and air and naval forces of Israel)

Haganah (the clandestine military wing of the Jewish leadership during the British rule over the mandate of Palestine from 1920 to 1948; became the basis for the Israeli defense force)

moshav (a cooperative Israeli village or settlement comprised of small farms)

kibbutz (a collective farm or settlement owned by its members in modern Israel; children are reared collectively)

Iz Al-Din Al-Qassam Battalions; Qassam Brigades; Salah al-Din Battalions (the military arm of Hamas responsible for suicide bombings and other attacks on Israel)

15 May Organization (a terrorist organization formed in 1979 by a faction of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine but disbanded in the 1980s when key members left to join a faction of al-Fatah)

PFLP-GC; Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command (a Marxist-Leninist terrorist organization that conducted several attacks in western Europe)

Kach; Kahane Chai (a terrorist organization founded for Jewish defense; fights antisemitism and hopes to restore the biblical state of Israel)

Fatah Tanzim; Tanzim (a terrorist group organized by Yasser Arafat in 1995 as the armed wing of al-Fatah; serves a dual function of violent confrontation with Israel and serves as Arafat's unofficial militia to prevent rival Islamists from usurping leadership)

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

Middle East; Mideast; Near East (the area around the eastern Mediterranean; from Turkey to northern Africa and eastward to Iran; the site of such ancient civilizations as Phoenicia and Babylon and Egypt and the birthplace of Judaism and Christianity and Islam; had continuous economic and political turmoil in the 20th century)

Sense 2

Meaning:

An ancient kingdom of the Hebrew tribes at the southeastern end of the Mediterranean Sea; founded by Saul around 1025 BC and destroyed by the Assyrians in 721 BC

Classified under:

Nouns denoting spatial position

Instance hypernyms:

kingdom (a country with a king as head of state)

Meronyms (members of "Israel"):

Israelite (a native or inhabitant of the ancient kingdom of Israel)

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

Middle East; Mideast; Near East (the area around the eastern Mediterranean; from Turkey to northern Africa and eastward to Iran; the site of such ancient civilizations as Phoenicia and Babylon and Egypt and the birthplace of Judaism and Christianity and Islam; had continuous economic and political turmoil in the 20th century)

 Context examples 

“Billy was the man for that,” said Israel.

(Treasure Island, by Robert Louis Stevenson)

A country in the Middle East, bordering the Mediterranean Sea, between Israel and Syria.

(Lebanon, NCI Thesaurus)

The Preacher who was king over Israel in Jerusalem thought as I think.

(The Sea-Wolf, by Jack London)

"We're familiar with drizzle as a process that takes place in warm temperatures," said atmospheric scientist Israel Silber of Penn State, lead author of the study.

(Drizzle at sub-zero temps recorded in Antarctica, National Science Foundation)

The participants—from 18 European countries, Israel, and Canada—were mostly white individuals of European ancestry.

(Vitamin D Levels Predict Multiple Sclerosis Progression, NIH)

Denotes the inhabitants of Israel, a person from there, or their descendants elsewhere.

(Israeli, NCI Thesaurus)

M. simiae is found primarily in the southwestern United States, Israel and Cuba, with tap water as its suspected reservoir.

(Mycobacterium simiae, NCI Thesaurus)

For example, in the Negev Desert along the Egypt-Israel border, the Israeli side's dunes are stabilized by vegetation; on the Egyptian side, however, the dunes are moving because overgrazing has left them barren.

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

They recruited critically ill patients from pediatric intensive care units in the United States, Canada, France, Italy, and Israel.

(Fresh red blood cell transfusions do not help critically ill children more than older cells, National Institutes of Health)

The Dana-Farber/Harvard Cancer Center is a cancer research consortium that integrates and builds on the collective talent and resources of seven Harvard-affiliated institutions: Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Boston Children's Hospital, Brigham and Women's Hospital, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Harvard Medical School, Harvard, School of Public Health, and Massachusetts General Hospital.

(Dana-Farber/Harvard Cancer Center, NCI Thesaurus)