Hispaniola

//hɪsˌpæniˈəʊlə// name

name ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Proper Noun
  1. 1
    An island of the Caribbean, divided politically into the independent nations of Haiti and the Dominican Republic.

Example

More examples

"In the early 17th century, the French established a presence on Hispaniola."

Etymology

A borrowing of Peter Martyr's Latin Hispaniola (equivalent to Hispania + -ola), used in his Decades to translate De las Casas's Spanish Española (in a more latinized form), a clipping of la Isla Española (“the Spanish Island”), translating Columbus's Latin Insula Hispania, bestowed upon its discovery in 1492. Doublet of Española.

Related phrases

Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.