Lisbon
name, noun ·Uncommon ·Advanced level
Definitions
- 1 A sweet, light-coloured wine from Portugal.
"We had plenty of port wine and Lisbon, which, with uninterrupted good humour, made the hours glide rapidly away."
- 1 A port city on the Iberian Peninsula, at the mouth of the Tagus River on the Atlantic Ocean; the capital city of Portugal.
- 2 A district of Portugal around the capital.
- 3 The Portuguese government. metonymically
- 4 A city, the county seat of Ransom County, North Dakota, United States.
- 5 A village, the county seat of Columbiana County, Ohio, United States.
Example
More examples"The best approach to Lisbon is by sea."
Etymology
As the capital of Portugal, from French Lisbonne, from Arabic لِشْبُونَة (lišbūna), from Latin Olisīpō, the origin of which is uncertain. Older spellings include Ulixbona and Ulixbuna (in the Visigothic era); Ὀλισσιπών (Olissipṓn) or Ὀλισσιπόνα (Olissipóna) (by Greek writers), Olisippo (by Pliny the Elder), and Ulyssippo (by Pomponius Mela of Hispania), the last of which relates to the first-century Roman folk etymology that it was founded by and named after Ulysses; another common folk etymology is the Phoenician 𐤏𐤋𐤉𐤑 𐤏𐤁𐤀 (ʿlyṣ ʿbʾ /ʿaliṣ-ʿuboʾ/, “safe harbour”), but there is not much evidence for such words. Another possibility, based on hydronymy of the area, derives the name from Paleo-Hispanic's appellation for the Tagus, Lisso or Lucio. In other senses, with reference to the Portuguese city.
Related phrases
More for "lisbon"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.