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Canada

   Also found in: Medical, Acronyms, Encyclopedia, Wikipedia, Hutchinson 0.03 sec.
Can·a·da  (kn-d)
A country of northern North America. Originally inhabited by various Native American peoples, mainland Canada was explored by the English and the French beginning in the late 15th century. The French established the first permanent settlement at Port Royal (now Annapolis Royal) in 1605 but gradually lost control of eastern Canada, which was ceded to England in 1763 after the Seven Years' War. The Dominion of Canada was formed in 1867 and extended to the western provinces in 1905; Newfoundland formally joined the federation in 1949. The Statute of Westminster (1931) confirmed Canada's status as an independent nation within the Commonwealth. Ottawa is the capital and Montreal the largest city. Population: 31,600,000.

Ca·nadi·an (k-nd-n) adj. & n.
Word History: Linguistically, mountains can be made out of molehills, so to speak: words denoting a small thing can, over time, come to denote something much larger. This is the case with Canada, now the name of the second-largest country in the world but having a much humbler origin. Apparently its history starts with the word kanata, which in Huron (an Iroquoian language of eastern Canada) meant "village." Jacques Cartier, the early French explorer, picked up the word and used it to refer to the land around his settlement, now part of Quebec City. By the 18th century it referred to all of New France, which extended from the St. Lawrence River to the Great Lakes and down into what is now the American Midwest. In 1759, the British conquered New France and used the name Quebec for the colony north of the St. Lawrence River, and Canada for the rest of the territory. Eventually, as the territory increased in size and the present arrangement of the provinces developed, Canada applied to all the land north of the United States and east of Alaska.
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Canada
ThesaurusLegend:  Synonyms Related Words Antonyms
Noun1.CanadaCanada - a nation in northern North America; the French were the first Europeans to settle in mainland Canada; "the border between the United States and Canada is the longest unguarded border in the world"
dog sled, dog sleigh, dogsled - a sled pulled by dogs
British Commonwealth, Commonwealth of Nations - an association of nations consisting of the United Kingdom and several former British colonies that are now sovereign states but still pay allegiance to the British Crown
NATO, North Atlantic Treaty Organization - an international organization created in 1949 by the North Atlantic Treaty for purposes of collective security
Canadian Security Intelligence Service, CSIS - Canada's main foreign intelligence agency that gathers and analyzes information to provide security intelligence for the Canadian government
Communications Security Establishment, CSE - Canadian agency that gathers communications intelligence and assist law enforcement and security agencies
CISC, Criminal Intelligence Services of Canada - an agency of the Canadian government that unifies the intelligence units of Canadian law enforcement agencies
Department of Justice Canada, DoJC - an agency of the Canadian government that provides litigation and legal advice and opinions to the government
Security Intelligence Review Committee, SIRC - an agency of the Canadian government that oversees the activities of the Criminal Intelligence Services of Canada and has the power to intrude on the privacy of suspected terrorists or spies
Baffin Island - the 5th largest island and the largest island of Arctic Canada; lies between Greenland and Hudson Bay
Canadian Shield, Laurentian Highlands, Laurentian Plateau - a large plateau that occupies more than 40% of the land area of Canada; it extends from the Great Lakes northward to the Arctic Ocean
Canadian Maritime Provinces, Maritime Provinces, Maritimes - the collective name for the Canadian provinces of New Brunswick and Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island
Alberta - one of the three prairie provinces in western Canada; rich in oil and natural gas and minerals
British Columbia - a province in western Canada
Manitoba - one of the three prairie provinces in central Canada
Newfoundland and Labrador - a Canadian province on the island of Newfoundland and on the mainland along the coast of the Labrador Sea; became Canada's 10th province in 1949
Northwest Territories - a large territory in northwestern Canada; part is now Nunavut
Nunavut - an Arctic territory in northern Canada created in 1999 and governed solely by the Inuit; includes the eastern part of what was the Northwest Territories and most of the islands of the Arctic Archipelago; "Nunavut is the homeland of the Inuit people"
Arctic Archipelago - all the islands that lie to the north of mainland Canada and the Arctic Circle
Ontario - a prosperous and industrialized province in central Canada
Toronto - the provincial capital and largest city in Ontario (and the largest city in Canada)
Quebec - the largest province of Canada; a French colony from 1663 to 1759 when it was lost to the British
Saskatchewan - one of the three prairie provinces in west central Canada; "vast fields of wheat grow on Saskatchewan's prairies"
Yukon Territory, Yukon - a territory in northwestern Canada; site of the Klondike gold rush in the 1890s
British Empire - a former empire consisting of Great Britain and all the territories under its control; reached its greatest extent at the end of World War I; it included the British Isles, British West Indies, Canada, British Guiana; British West Africa, British East Africa, India, Australia, New Zealand; "the sun never sets on the British Empire"
Columbia, Columbia River - a North American river; rises in southwestern Canada and flows southward across Washington to form the border between Washington and Oregon before emptying into the Pacific; known for its salmon runs in the spring
Great Lakes - a group of five large, interconnected lakes in central North America
Hudson Bay - an inland sea in northern Canada
Labrador Peninsula, Labrador-Ungava Peninsula - a peninsular region of eastern Canada between Hudson Bay and the Labrador Sea; contains most of Quebec and the mainland part of Newfoundland and Labrador
Mackenzie River, Mackenzie - a Canadian river; flows into the Beaufort Sea
Niagara River, Niagara - a river flowing from Lake Erie into Lake Ontario; forms boundary between Ontario and New York
North America - a continent (the third largest) in the western hemisphere connected to South America by the Isthmus of Panama
Translations
Spanish Canada [ˈkænədə] nCanadá m
French Canada [ˈkænədə] nCanada m
German Canada [ˈkænədə] nKanada nt
Italian Canada [ˈkænədə] nCanada m

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A BOSS who had gone to Canada was taunted by a Citizen of Montreal with having fled to avoid prosecution.
And it was for the same reason that Canada was lost to the mother country.
IN THE COURSE of occasional visits to Canada many years since, I became intimately acquainted with some of the principal partners of the great Northwest Fur Company, who at that time lived in genial style at Montreal, and kept almost open house for the stranger.
 
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