North America

American  

noun

1. the northern continent of the Western Hemisphere, extending from Central America to the Arctic Ocean. Highest point, Denali, 20,300 feet (6,187 meters); lowest, Death Valley, 276 feet (84 meters) below sea level. About 9,360,000 square miles (24,242,400 square kilometers).

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North America British  

noun

1. the third largest continent, linked with South America by the Isthmus of Panama and bordering on the Arctic Ocean, the N Pacific, the N Atlantic, the Gulf of Mexico, and the Caribbean. It consists generally of a great mountain system (the Western Cordillera) extending along the entire W coast, actively volcanic in the extreme north and south, with the Great Plains to the east and the Appalachians still further east, separated from the Canadian Shield by an arc of large lakes (Great Bear, Great Slave, Winnipeg, Superior, Michigan, Huron, Erie, Ontario); reaches its greatest height of 6194 m (20 320 ft) in Mount McKinley, Alaska, and its lowest point of 85 m (280 ft) below sea level in Death Valley, California, and ranges from snowfields, tundra, and taiga in the north to deserts in the southwest and tropical forests in the extreme south. Pop: 332 156 000 (2005 est). Area: over 24 000 000 sq km (9 500 000 sq miles)

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North America Cultural  

1. Third-largest continent (after Asia and Africa), comprising Canada, the United States, Mexico, and Central America.

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Other Word Forms

• North American adjective

Etymology

Origin of North America

First recorded in 1680–90

Example Sentences

Nike’s overall quarterly sales of $11.3 billion beat Wall Street expectations, with sales ticking up in North America and Europe.

From The Wall Street Journal

Based on its features, scientists classified it as a thescelosaurid, a group of two-legged dinosaurs found in East Asia and North America that may have had fuzzy coverings.

From Science Daily

Rattlesnakes “evolved this venom millions and millions of years before people were ever even in North America.”

From Los Angeles Times

Management made the forecast as gains in running shoes, soccer gear and a rebound in North America run up against an array of other problems.

From MarketWatch

Sales ticked up in North America as well as in the Europe, Middle East and Africa region and in the Asia Pacific and Latin America market.

From The Wall Street Journal