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Portugal
5 dictionary results for: Portugal
Dictionary.com Unabridged (v 1.1) - Cite This Source - Share This
Por·tu·gal       [pawr-chuh-guhl, pohr-; Port. pawr-too-gahl] Pronunciation Key
–noun
a republic in SW Europe, on the Iberian Peninsula, W of Spain. (Including the Azores and the Madeira Islands) 9,867,654; 35,414 sq. mi. (91,720 sq. km). Capital: Lisbon.
American Heritage Dictionary - Cite This Source - Share This
Por·tu·gal       (pôr'chə-gəl, pōr'-)  Pronunciation Key 


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A country of southwest Europe on the western Iberian Peninsula. It includes the Madeira Islands and the Azores in the northern Atlantic Ocean. Originally inhabited by the Lusitanians, a Celtiberian people, the mainland area was subjugated by the Romans in the second century B.C. and was later conquered by the Visigoths and Moors. Spain recognized Portugal as an independent kingdom in 1143, and it soon flourished as a maritime and colonial power with holdings stretching from Africa to the Far East and Brazil in the New World. Much of its empire was lost to the British and the Dutch in the 17th and 18th centuries, and the remaining colonies in Africa became independent in the 20th century. Lisbon is the capital and the largest city. Population: 10,600,000.

Online Etymology Dictionary - Cite This Source - Share This
Portugal 
c.1386, Portyngale, from M.L. Portus Cale (Roman name of modern Oporto), "the port of Gaya." Alfonso, Count of Portucale, became the first king of Portugal.

WordNet - Cite This Source - Share This
portugal

noun
a republic in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula; Portuguese explorers and colonists in the 15th and 16th centuries created a vast overseas empire (including Brazil) 

American Heritage New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy, Third Edition - Cite This Source - Share This
Portugal

Republic in southwestern Europe, bordered by Spain to the north and east, and the Atlantic Ocean to the south and west. Its capital and largest city is Lisbon.

Note: Portugal has been a member of NATO since 1949.
Note: Famous for its explorers in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, Portugal followed such exploration closely with colonization. By the middle of the sixteenth century, Portugal controlled a vast overseas empire, including Brazil.
Note: Portugal has been independent since the twelfth century, except for sixty years of Spanish rule in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries.

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