Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • A region and former French colony of eastern Canada, chiefly in Nova Scotia but also including New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island, Cape Breton Island, and the coastal area from the St. Lawrence River south into Maine. During the French and Indian War (1754–1763) many Acadians migrated or were deported by the British to southern territories, including Louisiana, where their descendants came to be known as Cajuns.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun the French-speaking part of the Canadian Maritime Provinces.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • proper noun history A colonial territory owned by France in the 17th and early 18th centuries, spanning over what is now northeast USA and the Maritime provinces of eastern Canada (Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island, and Newfoundland)
  • proper noun Acadia National Park, a national park in Maine
  • proper noun A parish in southern Louisiana settled by Acadian exiles.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun the French-speaking part of the Canadian Maritime Provinces

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Italian Archadia (1520), possibly from Ancient Greek Ἀρκαδία ("a place of rural peace in pastoral poetry"), or possibly from Algonquin akadie ("fertile land").

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