San Sebastián

American  

[san suh-bas-chuhn, sahn se-bahs-tyahn] / ˌsæn səˈbæs tʃən, ˌsɑn sɛ βɑsˈtyɑn /

noun

1. a seaport in northern Spain: a tourist destination and host to an international film festival.

2. a city in northwestern Puerto Rico.

3. a tropical American plant, Cattleya skinneri, having cylindrical leaves and yellow-throated, rose-purple flowers.

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San Sebastián British  

/ san seβasˈtjan, ˌsæn səˈbæstjən /

noun

1. Official name: Donostia-San Sebastián.  a port and resort in N Spain on the Bay of Biscay: former summer residence of the Spanish court. Pop: 181 811 (2003 est)

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Example Sentences

He was born in San Sebastián in the Basque region, and in 1948 moved to Paris, where he modeled plaster figures in a style influenced by Brancusi.

From The Wall Street Journal • Dec. 13, 2025

We retreat to San Sebastián like Jake Barnes before us.

From Salon • Nov. 8, 2025

Although “Sparta” premiered in competition at the San Sebastián International Film Festival, it was yanked from several other festivals, including Toronto, in the wake of these charges, which Seidl has refuted.

From Los Angeles Times • Mar. 30, 2023

In the coastal Spanish town of San Sebastián, residents swapped sweaters for T-shirts and headed to the beach for a swim.

From New York Times • Jan. 4, 2023

In the province of Tondo they have the convent and ministry of San Sebastián.

From The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 — Volume 28 of 55 1637-38 Explorations by Early Navigators, Descriptions of the Islands and Their Peoples, Their History and Records of the Catholic Missions, as Related in Contemporaneous Books and Manuscripts, Showing the Political, Economic, Commercial and Religious Conditions of Those Islands from Their Earliest Relations with European Nations to the Close of the Nineteenth Century by Blair, Emma Helen