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brasil

 - 4 dictionary results

Bra⋅sil

  [Port. bruh-zeel; Sp. brah-seel]
Use brasil in a Sentence
–noun
Brazil.

Bra⋅zil

  [bruh-zil]
–noun
a republic in South America. 164,511,366; 3,286,170 sq. mi. (8,511,180 sq. km). Capital: Brasília.
Portuguese and Spanish, Brasil.
Official name, Federative Republic of Brazil.

Related forms:
Bra⋅zil⋅ian  [bruh-zil-yuhn] , adjective, noun
Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2009.
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Cultural Dictionary

Brazil

Republic in eastern South America. It borders on every South American country except Chile and Ecuador. Its capital is Brasilia, and its largest city is São Paulo.

Note: The largest of the Latin-American countries, Brazil occupies almost half of South America.
Note: It is the world's leading coffee exporter.
Note: The only country in South America whose history was dominated by Portugal; it is the largest Portuguese-speaking country in the world.
The American Heritage® New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy, Third Edition
Copyright © 2005 by Houghton Mifflin Company.
Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.
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Word Origin & History

Brazil 
1555, from Sp./Port. terra de brasil "red-dye-wood land," from Sp. brasil or It. brasile, probably connected to Fr. braize (q.v.) for resemblance of color to a glowing ember (but O.It. form verzino suggests a possible connection with Ar. wars "saffron"). Originally the name of a type of wood from an E. Indian tree, used in making dye; the name later transferred to a similar S.Amer. species. The word in reference to the wood is attested in Eng. from 1386. Complicating matters is Hy Brasil a name applied by 1436 to one of the larger Azores Islands, later transf. to a legendary island or rock off the west coast of Ireland (sighted in 1791 at lat. 51° 10', long. 15° 58').
Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2001 Douglas Harper
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