Palmyra
name, noun ·Uncommon ·Advanced level
Definitions
- 1 A palm (Borassus flabellifer) with straight black upright trunk and palmate leaves, whose wood, fruit, and roots can be used for many purposes.
- 2 tall fan palm of Africa and India and Malaysia yielding a hard wood and sweet sap that is a source of palm wine and sugar; leaves used for thatching and weaving wordnet
- 1 An ancient city, an oasis in the Syrian Desert, in present-day central Syria, recorded historically from around 2000 BCE, subsequently subject to various empires and destroyed in 273 CE and again in 1400, when it was reduced to a village.
"In the mid-fifth century B.C. Herodotus (1:131; 3.8) mentioned the importance of the cult of Al-Ilât, i.e. Allat, in ancient Arabia. Her sanctuary at Palmyra (Pl. XVII), excavated in the 1970s by the Polish mission, is in the neighborhood of the temple of Baal Shamin and lends a special character to the city's western quarter, in which Arab tribes settled during the second century B.C."
- 2 A city, the county seat of Marion County, Missouri, United States.
- 3 A census-designated place, the county seat of Fluvanna County, Virginia, United States.
- 4 A number of townships in the United States, listed under Palmyra Township.
Example
More examples"In the mid-fifth century B.C. Herodotus (1:131; 3.8) mentioned the importance of the cult of Al-Ilât, i.e. Allat, in ancient Arabia. Her sanctuary at Palmyra (Pl. XVII), excavated in the 1970s by the Polish mission, is in the neighborhood of the temple of Baal Shamin and lends a special character to the city's western quarter, in which Arab tribes settled during the second century B.C."
Etymology
From Ancient Greek Παλμύρα (Palmúra). For more see Palmyra on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
From Portuguese palmeira (“palm tree”), from palma (“palm, palm tree”) + -eria (“-tree: forming tree names”), from Old Galician-Portuguese -eira (“-plant: forming plant names from their fruit”), from Latin -āria (“-ary: forming feminine nouns including plant names”).
Related phrases
More for "palmyra"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.