SAHARA DESERT

IPA (US):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does Sahara Desert mean? 

• SAHARA DESERT (noun)
  The noun SAHARA DESERT has 1 sense:

1. the world's largest desert (3,500,000 square miles) in northern Africa

  Familiarity information: SAHARA DESERT used as a noun is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• SAHARA DESERT (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

The world's largest desert (3,500,000 square miles) in northern Africa

Classified under:

Nouns denoting spatial position

Synonyms:

Sahara; Sahara Desert

Instance hypernyms:

desert (arid land with little or no vegetation)

Meronyms (parts of "Sahara Desert"):

Libyan Desert (the northeastern part of the Sahara Desert in Libya and Egypt and Sudan)

Meronyms (members of "Sahara Desert"):

Tuareg (a member of a nomadic Berber people of the Sahara)

Holonyms ("Sahara Desert" is a part of...):

Africa (the second largest continent; located to the south of Europe and bordered to the west by the South Atlantic and to the east by the Indian Ocean)

 Context examples 

A new paper describes the Trans-Saharan Seaway that existed 50 to 100 million years ago in the region of the current Sahara Desert.

(Ancient Saharan seaway illustrates how Earth’s climate and creatures can undergo extreme change, National Science Foundation)

The Sahara Desert has expanded by about 10 percent since 1920, according to a new study by National Science Foundation (NSF)-funded scientists at the University of Maryland (UMD).

(New study finds world’s largest desert, the Sahara, has grown by 10 percent since 1920, National Science Foundation)

The Sahara Desert was once underwater, in contrast to its present-day arid environment.

(Ancient Saharan seaway illustrates how Earth’s climate and creatures can undergo extreme change, National Science Foundation)