Americaとは 意味・読み方・使い方

語源

From New Latin America, feminine Latinized form of the Italian first name of Amerigo Vespucci (1454–1512). Amerigo is an Italian name derived from a Germanic language and is etymologically related to Henry and Emmerich. The earliest known use of America for the (South) American continent is on a 1507 map by Martin Waldseemüller;^[1][2] see Naming of the Americas for more.

Although this is the most widely accepted derivation, it has also been suggested that it could originate from the name of the Amerrisque mountains in Nicaragua (from Mayan), and another disputed theory is that it derives from the surname of Richard Amerike (1440–1503), whose surname is an anglicised form of Welsh ap Meurig (“son of Meurig”), from Old Welsh Mouric, which could be a rendition of Latin Mauritius (compare Maurice).^[3]

発音

• IPA^(key): /əˈmɛɹ.ɪ.kə/
• (weak vowel merger) IPA^(key): /əˈmɛɹ.ə.kə/
  • 韻: -ɛɹɪkə
• (一般的ではない用法) IPA^(key): /əˈmɚ.ɪ.kə/, /əˈmɚ.ə.kə/
• (廃れた用法) IPA^(key): /əˈmɛɹ.ɪ.keɪ/, /əˈmɛɹ.ɪ.kɔː/^[4]

固有名詞

America (複数形 Americas)

2. The Americas.
   • 1847, Joseph Dalton Hooker, On the Vegetation of the Galapagos Archipelago, as compared with that of some other Tropical Islands and of the Continent of America, DOI:10.1111/j.1096-3642.1846.tb00417.x, pages 235–262:

     The results of my examination ... for the most part allied to plants of the cooler part of America, or the uplands of the tropical latitudes ...

   • 1890, Encyclopaedia Britannica, page 796:

     the Marsupials or pouched animals, being found throughout the continent of America, from the United States to Patagonia

   • 2009, Diarmaid MacCulloch, A History of Christianity, Penguin, published 2010, page 691:

     Franciscan attitudes in the Canaries offered possible precedents for what Europe now came to call ‘the New World’, or, through a somewhat tangled chain of circumstances, ‘America’.

3. A female given name.
4. A town in Limburg, Netherlands.
6. (sometimes proscribed) The United States of America.
   • 1837, George Sand, Stanley Young, transl., Mauprat‎^[5], Cassandra Editions, published 1977, →ISBN, page 237:

     For a long time the dormouse and polecat had seemed to him overfeeble enemies for his restless valour, even as the granary floor seemed to afford too narrow a field. Every day he read the papers of the previous day in the servants' hall of the houses he visited, and it appeared to him that this war in America, which was hailed as the awakening of the spirit of liberty and justice in the New World, ought to produce a revolution in France.

   • 2013 May 25, “No hiding place”, in The Economist‎^[6], volume 407, page 74:

     In America alone, people spent $170 billion on “direct marketing”—junk mail of both the physical and electronic varieties—last year. Yet of those who received unsolicited adverts through the post, only 3% bought anything as a result.

   • 2014 July 27, “Nuclear Weapons”, in Last Week Tonight with John Oliver, season 1, episode 12, HBO:

     And once gain, America is saved from destruction by the heroes in “MEAL Team Six”.

   • 2022 April 3, Roisin Conaty & al., Big Fat Quiz of Everything, Channel 4:

     Captain America, how did he get his powers?
     I think he... he got bitten by America.

使用する際の注意点

In English, the unqualified term "America" often refers to the United States of America as a synecdoche, with "American" typically referring to people and things from that country. The sense of "the Americas" varies in commonness between regions in contemporary English, but is found in certain circumstances, such as in reference to the Organization of American States.

同意語

• (North かつ South America) Americas
• (United States of America) see United States of America#同意語

派生語

参考

• (continents) continent; Africa, America (North America, South America), Antarctica, Asia, Europe, Oceania ^{(Category: en:Continents)}

参照

Latin

語源

Feminine form of Americus, the Latinized form of the forename of Italian explorer Amerigo Vespucci (1454–1512). Amerigo is the Italian form of a Germanic personal name (see Emmerich).

First recorded in 1507 (together with the related term Amerigen) in the Cosmographiae Introductio, apparently written by Matthias Ringmann, in reference to South America;^[1] first applied to both North and South America by Mercator in 1538. Amerigen means "land of Amerigo" and derives from Amerigo and gen, the accusative case of Greek gē "earth". America accorded with the feminine names of Asia, Africa, and Europa.^[2]

発音

• (Classical) IPA^(key): /aˈme.ri.ka/, [äˈmɛrɪkä]
• (Ecclesiastical) IPA^(key): /aˈme.ri.ka/, [äˈmɛːrikä]

固有名詞

America f sg (genitive Americae); first declension

1. (New Latin) America (the continent).

語形変化

First-declension noun, singular only.

参照

• America in Ramminger, Johann (accessed 16 July 2016) Neulateinische Wortliste: Ein Wörterbuch des Lateinischen von Petrarca bis 1700‎^[7], pre-publication website, 2005-2016