WEST INDIES

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does West Indies mean? 

• WEST INDIES (noun)
  The noun WEST INDIES has 1 sense:

1. the string of islands between North America and South America; a popular resort area

  Familiarity information: WEST INDIES used as a noun is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• WEST INDIES (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

The string of islands between North America and South America; a popular resort area

Classified under:

Nouns denoting spatial position

Synonyms:

the Indies; West Indies

Instance hypernyms:

archipelago (a group of many islands in a large body of water)

Meronyms (parts of "West Indies"):

Anguilla (a British colony in the West Indies)

Cayman Islands (a British colony in the Caribbean to the northwest of Jamaica; an international banking center)

Montserrat (a volcanic island in the Caribbean; in the West Indies)

Antilles (a group of islands in the West Indies)

French West Indies (the islands in the Lesser Antilles that are administered by France)

Virgin Islands (a group of islands in northeastern West Indies (east of Puerto Rico) discovered by Christopher Columbus in 1493; owned by United States and Britain)

Trinidad (an island in West Indies just off the northeastern coast of Venezuela)

Tobago (island in West Indies)

Bahama Islands; Bahamas; Commonwealth of the Bahamas (island country in the Atlantic to the east of Florida and Cuba; a popular winter resort)

Meronyms (members of "West Indies"):

Anguillan (a native or inhabitant of the island of Anguilla in the West Indies)

West Indian (a native or inhabitant of the West Indies)

Domain member category:

obeah; obi ((West Indies) followers of a religious system involving witchcraft and sorcery)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "West Indies"):

British West Indies (the islands in the West Indies that were formerly under British control, including the Bahamas, Saint Lucia, Antigua, Grenada, Jamaica, Barbados, and Trinidad)

Holonyms ("West Indies" is a part of...):

Caribbean (region including the Caribbean Islands)

Atlantic; Atlantic Ocean (the 2nd largest ocean; separates North and South America on the west from Europe and Africa on the east)

 Context examples 

But I never went beyond the Streights, and never was in the West Indies.

(Persuasion, by Jane Austen)

I went down to Ramsgate for a week with a friend last September, just after my return from the West Indies.

(Mansfield Park, by Jane Austen)

I forget now where they chiefly went, but I think there were some among them that made voyages both to the East and West Indies.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

His name is Mason, sir; and he comes from the West Indies; from Spanish Town, in Jamaica, I think.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

I was surgeon successively in two ships, and made several voyages, for six years, to the East and West Indies, by which I got some addition to my fortune.

(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)

We do not call Bermuda or Bahama, you know, the West Indies.

(Persuasion, by Jane Austen)

I love to hear my uncle talk of the West Indies.

(Mansfield Park, by Jane Austen)

Presently the words Jamaica, Kingston, Spanish Town, indicated the West Indies as his residence; and it was with no little surprise I gathered, ere long, that he had there first seen and become acquainted with Mr. Rochester.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

Reported fit for home service for a year or two, and so I was sent off to the West Indies.

(Persuasion, by Jane Austen)

He had been in the Mediterranean; in the West Indies; in the Mediterranean again; had been often taken on shore by the favour of his captain, and in the course of seven years had known every variety of danger which sea and war together could offer.

(Mansfield Park, by Jane Austen)