VIRGINIA

Pronunciation (US):

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does Virginia mean? 

• VIRGINIA (noun)
  The noun VIRGINIA has 3 senses:

1. a state in the eastern United States; one of the original 13 colonies; one of the Confederate States in the American Civil War

2. one of the British colonies that formed the United States

3. a town in northeastern Minnesota in the heart of the Mesabi Range

  Familiarity information: VIRGINIA used as a noun is uncommon.

 Dictionary entry details 

• VIRGINIA (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

A state in the eastern United States; one of the original 13 colonies; one of the Confederate States in the American Civil War

Classified under:

Nouns denoting spatial position

Synonyms:

Old Dominion; Old Dominion State; VA; Va.; Virginia

Instance hypernyms:

American state (one of the 50 states of the United States)

Meronyms (parts of "Virginia"):

Blue Ridge; Blue Ridge Mountains (a range of the Appalachians extending from southern Pennsylvania to northern Georgia)

Roanoke (a city in southwestern Virginia)

Bull Run (a creek in northeastern Virginia where two battles were fought in the American Civil War)

Chancellorsville (a village in northeastern Virginia)

Fredericksburg (a town in northeastern Virginia on the Rappahannock River)

Petersburg (a town in southeastern Virginia (south of Richmond); scene of heavy fighting during the American Civil War)

Spotsylvania (a village in northeastern Virginia where battles were fought during the American Civil War)

Yorktown (a historic village in southeastern Virginia to the north of Newport News; site of the last battle of the American Revolution)

Mount Vernon (the former residence of George Washington in northeastern Virginia overlooking the Potomac river)

Alleghenies; Allegheny Mountains (the western part of the Appalachian Mountains; extending from northern Pennsylvania to southwestern Virginia)

Shenandoah Valley (a large valley between the Allegheny Mountains and the Blue Ridge Mountains in northern Virginia; site of numerous battles during the American Civil War)

Chesapeake Bay (a large inlet of the North Atlantic between Virginia and Maryland; fed by Susquehanna River)

Clinch River (a river that rises in southwestern Virginia and flows generally southwestward across eastern Tennessee to the Tennessee River)

Elizabeth River (a short river in southeastern Virginia flowing between Norfolk and Portsmouth into Hampton Roads)

Hampton Roads (a channel in southeastern Virginia through which the Elizabeth River and the James River flow into Chesapeake Bay)

James; James River (a river in Virginia that flows east into Chesapeake Bay at Hampton Roads)

Potomac; Potomac River (a river in the east central United States; rises in West Virginia in the Appalachian Mountains and flows eastward, forming the boundary between Maryland and Virginia, to the Chesapeake Bay)

Rappahannock; Rappahannock River (a river that flows across eastern Virginia into the Tidewater region)

Shenandoah River (a river of northern Virginia that empties into the Potomac at Harpers Ferry)

Portsmouth (a port city in southeastern Virginia on the Elizabeth River opposite Norfolk; naval base; shipyards)

Lynchburg (a city in central Virginia)

Norfolk (port city located in southeastern Virginia on the Elizabeth River at the mouth of Chesapeake Bay; headquarters of the Atlantic fleet of the United States Navy)

Newport News (a port city in southeastern Virginia at the mouth of the James River off Hampton Roads; large shipyards)

Jamestown (a former village on the James River in Virginia to the north of Norfolk; site of the first permanent English settlement in America in 1607)

Blacksburg (a university town in southwestern Virginia (west of Roanoke) in the Allegheny Mountains)

capital of Virginia; Richmond (capital of the state of Virginia located in the east central part of the state; was capital of the Confederacy during the American Civil War)

Shenandoah National Park (a national park in Virginia for the Blue Ridge Mountains)

Virginia Beach (the largest city in Virginia; long overshadowed by Norfolk but growing rapidly since 1970; with 28 miles of public beaches tourism is a major factor in the economy; site of three United States Navy bases)

Domain member region:

siege of Yorktown; Yorktown (in 1781 the British under Cornwallis surrendered after a siege of three weeks by American and French troops; the surrender ended the American Revolution)

Wilderness Campaign (American Civil War; a series of indecisive battles in Grant's campaign (1864) against Lee in which both armies suffered terrible losses)

battle of Spotsylvania Courthouse; Spotsylvania (a battle between the armies of Grant and Lee during the Wilderness Campaign)

Petersburg; Petersburg Campaign (the final campaign of the American Civil War (1864-65); Union forces under Grant besieged and finally defeated Confederate forces under Lee)

Battle of Fredericksburg; Fredericksburg (an important battle in the American Civil War (1862); the Union Army under A. E. Burnside was defeated by the Confederate Army under Robert E. Lee)

Chancellorsville (a major battle in the American Civil War (1863); the Confederates under Robert E. Lee defeated the Union forces under Joseph Hooker)

Battle of Bull Run; Bull Run (either of two battles during the American Civil War (1861 and 1862); Confederate forces defeated the Federal army in both battles)

Wilderness (a wooded region in northeastern Virginia near Spotsylvania where bloody but inconclusive battles were fought in the American Civil War)

Holonyms ("Virginia" is a part of...):

America; the States; U.S.; U.S.A.; United States; United States of America; US; USA (North American republic containing 50 states - 48 conterminous states in North America plus Alaska in northwest North America and the Hawaiian Islands in the Pacific Ocean; achieved independence in 1776)

South (the region of the United States lying to the south of the Mason-Dixon line)

Holonyms ("Virginia" is a member of...):

Confederacy; Confederate States; Confederate States of America; Dixie; Dixieland; South (the southern states that seceded from the United States in 1861)

Sense 2

Meaning:

One of the British colonies that formed the United States

Classified under:

Nouns denoting spatial position

Instance hypernyms:

Colony (one of the 13 British colonies that formed the original states of the United States)

Sense 3

Meaning:

A town in northeastern Minnesota in the heart of the Mesabi Range

Classified under:

Nouns denoting spatial position

Instance hypernyms:

town (an urban area with a fixed boundary that is smaller than a city)

Holonyms ("Virginia" is a part of...):

Gopher State; Minn.; Minnesota; MN; North Star State (a midwestern state)

 Context examples 

Researchers of the University of Virginia School of Medicine recently discovered a series of channels that surround blood vessels within the brains of mice.

(Lymphatic Vessels Discovered in Central Nervous System, NIH)

A team from Virginia Commonwealth University and the Garvan Institute of Medical Research in Australia, explored the effects of ambient temperature on brown fat and metabolism.

(Cool temperature alters human fat and metabolism, NIH)

A test devised by Dr. Virginia Apgar to assess the overall health of a newborn upon birth.

(Apgar Test, NCI Thesaurus)

Co-author Chris Gough of Virginia Commonwealth University suggests that multiple layers of leaves may optimize how efficiently light is used to power carbon sequestration in wood.

(Structural complexity in forests improves carbon capture, National Science Foundation)

"We discovered valleys that carried water into lake basins," said Sharon Wilson of the Smithsonian Institution, Washington, and the University of Virginia, Charlottesville.

(Some Ancient Mars Lakes Came Long After Others, NASA)

A Virginia Tech research team discovered that the olive-derived compound oleuropein helps the body secrete more insulin, a central signaling molecule in the body that controls metabolism.

(Health Benefits of Olives and Olive Oil, The Titi Tudorancea Bulletin)

There's Bruce, and Virginia Spring, and Sedgwick.

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)

Breakthrough Listen used instruments at the Green Bank Telescope in West Virginia to observe that location over 5 hours on Saturday, detecting 15 bursts over the entire 4 to 8 GHz frequency band.

(Mysterious Radio Signals Detected from Deep Space, The Titi Tudorancea Bulletin)

"Normally the dust would fall down in a day or so," said the paper's lead author, Nicholas Heavens of Hampton University in Hampton, Virginia.

(Global Storms on Mars Launch Dust Towers Into the Sky, NASA)

And therein may be the Kalahari's greatest challenge, say scientists Paolo D'Odorico of the University of Virginia and Greg Okin of the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA).

(Sleeping sands of the Kalahari awaken after more than 10,000 years, NSF)