ITALY

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

IPA (US):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does Italy mean? 

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

1. a republic in southern Europe on the Italian Peninsula; was the core of the Roman Republic and the Roman Empire between the 4th century BC and the 5th century AD

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

 Dictionary entry details 

• ITALY (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

A republic in southern Europe on the Italian Peninsula; was the core of the Roman Republic and the Roman Empire between the 4th century BC and the 5th century AD

Classified under:

Nouns denoting spatial position

Synonyms:

Italia; Italian Republic; Italy

Instance hypernyms:

European country; European nation (any one of the countries occupying the European continent)

Meronyms (parts of "Italy"):

Liguria (region of northwestern Italy on the Ligurian Sea)

Bolzano (an Italian city in Trentino-Alto Adige near the Austrian border; noted as a resort and for its Alpine scenery)

Brescia (an ancient Italian city in central Lombardy)

Calabria (a region of southern Italy (forming the toe of the Italian 'boot'))

Etruria (an ancient country in central Italy; assimilated by the Romans by about 200 BC)

Campania (a region of southwestern Italy on the Tyrrhenian Sea including the islands of Capri and Ischia)

Ferrara (a city in northern Italy)

Emilia-Romagna (a region of north central Italy on the Adriatic)

Friuli-Venezia Giulia (a region in northeastern Italy)

Latium; Lazio (an ancient region of west central Italy (southeast of Rome) on the Tyrrhenian Sea)

capital of Italy; Eternal City; Italian capital; Roma; Rome (capital and largest city of Italy; on the Tiber; seat of the Roman Catholic Church; formerly the capital of the Roman Republic and the Roman Empire)

Anzio (a town of central Italy on the Tyrrhenian Sea; the Allies established a beachhead at Anzio in World War II)

Brindisi (a port city in southeastern Apulia in Italy; a center for the Crusades in the Middle Ages)

Tibur; Tivoli (a town twenty miles to the east of Rome (Tibur is the ancient name); a summer resort during the Roman empire; noted for its waterfalls)

Basilicata; Lucania (a region of southern Italy (forming the instep of the Italian 'boot'))

Lombardia; Lombardy (a region of north central Italy bordering Switzerland)

Marche; Marches (a region in central Italy)

Molise (a region of south central Italy)

Papal States (the temporal dominions belonging to the pope (especially in central Italy))

Piedmont; Piemonte (the region of northwestern Italy; includes the Po valley)

Apulia; Puglia (a region in southeastern Italy on the Adriatic)

Sardegna; Sardinia (the Italian region on the island of Sardinia; the kingdom of Sardinia was the nucleus for uniting Italy during the 19th century)

Sicilia; Sicily (the Italian region on the island of Sicily)

Toscana; Tuscany (a region in central Italy)

Trentino-Alto Adige (a region of northeastern Italy bordering Austria)

Umbria (a mountainous region in central Italy)

Valle D'Aosta (a region in northwestern Italy)

Venetia; Veneto; Venezia-Euganea (a region of northeastern Italy on the Adriatic)

Tirol; Tyrol (a picturesque mountainous province of western Austria and northern Italy)

Tyrolean Alps (a popular tourist area in the Tyrol)

Po; Po River (a European river; flows into the Adriatic Sea)

Mont Blanc; Monte Bianco (the highest mountain peak in the Alps; on the border between France and Italy to the south of Geneva (15,781 feet high))

Matterhorn (a mountain in the Alps on the border between Switzerland and Italy (14,780 feet high); noted for its distinctive shape)

Dolomite Alps (an eastern range of the Alps in northeastern Italy famous for their dolomitic limestone)

Appian Way (an ancient Roman road in Italy extending south from Rome to Brindisi; begun in 312 BC)

Flaminian Way (an ancient Roman road in Italy built by Gaius Flaminius in 220 BC; extends north from Rome to cisalpine Gaul)

Brenner Pass (an Alpine mountain pass connecting Innsbruck in Austria with Bolzano in Italy that has long been a route for trade and for invasions)

Bay of Naples (an arm of the Tyrrhenian Sea at Naples)

Arno; Arno River; River Arno (a river in central Italy rising in the Apennines and flowing through Florence and Pisa to the Ligurian Sea)

Apennines (a mountain range extending the length of the Italian peninsula)

Alps; the Alps (a large mountain system in south-central Europe; scenic beauty and winter sports make them a popular tourist attraction)

Adige; River Adige (a river in northern Italy that flows southeast into the Adriatic Sea)

Mount Vesuvius; Mt. Vesuvius; Vesuvius (a volcano in southwestern Italy on the Mediterranean coast; a Plinian eruption in 79 AD buried Pompeii and killed Pliny the Elder; last erupted in 1944)

Savoy (a geographical region of historical importance; a former duchy in what is now southwestern France, western Switzerland, and northwestern Italy)

Riviera (a coastal area between La Spezia in Italy and Cannes in France)

Italian Peninsula (a boot-shaped peninsula in southern Europe extending into the Mediterranean Sea)

Pompeii (ancient city to the southeast of Naples that was buried by a volcanic eruption from Vesuvius)

Herculaneum (ancient city; now destroyed)

Abruzzi; Abruzzi e Molise (a mountainous region of central Italy on the Adriatic)

Meronyms (members of "Italy"):

Italian (a native or inhabitant of Italy)

Sabine (a member of an ancient Oscan-speaking people of the central Apennines north of Rome who were conquered and assimilated into the Roman state in 290 BC)

Domain member region:

Cannae (ancient city is southeastern Italy where Hannibal defeated the Romans in 216 BC)

al dente (of pasta cooked so as to be firm when eaten)

spaghetti Western (a low-budget Western movie produced by a European (especially an Italian) film company)

battle of Caporetto; Caporetto (battle of World War I (1917); Italians were defeated by the Austrian and German forces)

Battle of Lake Trasimenus; Lake Trasimenus (a battle in 217 BC in which Hannibal ambushed a Roman army led by Flaminius)

Battle of Magenta; Magenta (a battle in 1859 in which the French and Sardinian forces under Napoleon III defeated the Austrians under Francis Joseph I)

Marengo (a battle in 1800 in which the French under Napoleon Bonaparte won a great victory over the Austrians)

Metaurus River (a battle during the second Punic War (207 BC); Hannibal's brother Hasdrubal was defeated by the Romans which ended Hannibal's hopes for success in Italy)

Battle of Ravenna; Ravenna (a battle between the French and an alliance of Spaniards and Swiss and Venetians in 1512)

Salerno (a battle in World War II; the port was captured by United States troops in September 1943)

battle of Solferino; Solferino (an indecisive battle in 1859 between the French and Sardinians under Napoleon III and the Austrians under Francis Joseph I)

battle of Trasimeno; Trasimeno (a battle in central Italy where Hannibal defeated the Romans under Flaminius in 217 BC)

Calabria (a region of southern Italy (forming the toe of the Italian 'boot'))

aloha; ciao (an acknowledgment that can be used to say hello or goodbye (aloha is Hawaiian and ciao is Italian))

Italian (the Romance language spoken in Italy)

grissino (a long slender crusty breadstick)

polenta (a thick mush made of cornmeal boiled in stock or water)

calamari; calamary; squid ((Italian cuisine) squid prepared as food)

BR; Brigate Rosse; Red Brigades (a Marxist-Leninist terrorist organization that arose out of a student protest movement in the late 1960s; wants to separate Italy from NATO and advocates violence in the service of class warfare and revolution; mostly inactive since 1989)

NIPR; Revolutionary Proletarian Initiative Nuclei; Revolutionary Proletarian Nucleus (a clandestine group of leftist extremists who oppose Italy's labor policies and foreign policy; responsible for bombing building in the historic center of Rome from 2000 to 2002)

commune (the smallest administrative district of several European countries)

Basilicata; Lucania (a region of southern Italy (forming the instep of the Italian 'boot'))

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

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 ("Italy" is a member of...):

Common Market; EC; EEC; EU; Europe; European Community; European Economic Community; European Union (an international organization of European countries formed after World War II to reduce trade barriers and increase cooperation among its members)

NATO; North Atlantic Treaty Organization (an international organization created in 1949 by the North Atlantic Treaty for purposes of collective security)

Derivation:

Italian (of or pertaining to or characteristic of Italy or its people or culture or language)

 Context examples 

Both Italy and America are full of stories of his dreadful powers.

(His Last Bow, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

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

(Italian, NCI Thesaurus)

I hear that they swarm in Italy even as they swarm here.

(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

How about flying to Paris? Or in Italy, Venice, Sienna, or Rome? In the US, Carmel-by-the-Sea or Santa Barbara? In Spain, Seville, or in Canada, Victoria or Quebec City?

(AstrologyZone.com, by Susan Miller)

And you never saw me take snuff, the reason being that in my snuff-box I carry a piece of Parmesan cheese—a cheese made in Italy, very nutritious.

(Treasure Island, by Robert Louis Stevenson)

WASP-18b is an extreme exoplanet," said Ignazio Pillitteri of the Istituto Nazionale di Astrofisica (INAF)-Osservatorio Astronomico di Palermo in Italy, who led the study.

(NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory Finds Planet That Makes Star Act Deceptively Old, NASA)

A type of orange tree grown in Italy.

(Bergamot, NCI Dictionary)

The GW170817 merger was the fifth detection of gravitational waves, made possible thanks to the NSF's Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) in the US and the Virgo Interferometer in Italy.

(First identification of a heavy element born from neutron star collision, ESO)

Researchers from Canada, South Africa and Italy have identified the new gene, called CDH2.

(Gene Causes Sudden Death in Young People, The Titi Tudorancea Bulletin)

A country in southern Europe, occupying islands in the Mediterranean Sea, south of Sicily (Italy).

(Malta, NCI Thesaurus)