Definitions

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

  • A historical region of northwest Europe including parts of northern France, western Belgium, and southwest Netherlands along the North Sea. For many centuries it enjoyed virtual independence and great prosperity as a center of the cloth industry. The Habsburg wars in the Low Countries caused the eventual division of the region, which suffered heavy damage during World War I and World War II.
  • A Dutch-speaking region of northern Belgium. It was granted limited autonomy in 1980.

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

  • proper noun historical The Countship of Flanders, of varying extent.
  • proper noun A subnational state in the north of federal Belgium, the institutional merger of a territorial region and the Dutch language 'community' which also has/shares some authority in the capital region Brussels.
  • proper noun Two provinces in Belgian Flanders: (West-Flanders and East-Flanders).
  • proper noun Short for French Flanders, a former province of the French kingdom on territory taken from the above countship, now constituting the French department Nord.
  • proper noun The principal railway station in Lille, capital of the above.

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

  • noun a medieval country in northern Europe that included regions now parts of northern France and Belgium and southwestern Netherlands

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From French Flandres, from Dutch Vlaanderen (pl.), from Middle Dutch Vlander, from Old Frisian, from Proto-Germanic *flaumdra ‘waterlogged land’, from *flaumaz ‘flowing, current (water)’ (compare Old High German weraltfloum ("transitoriness of life"), Old Norse flaumr ("eddy")), from Proto-Indo-European *plow-m- ‘flow’ (compare Ancient Greek plŷma ("dishwater, washing water")). More at flow. "Waterlogged" refers to the mudflats and salt marshes common to coastal Flanders.

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Examples

  • Practically the term Flanders or Flemish lace can be applied to all the laces made in Flanders and Belgium of the earliest periods.

    Chats on Old Lace and Needlework Emily Leigh Lowes

  • The mud in Flanders is of the most oozy description.

    With Canada at the Front 1916

  • A letter posted from the trenches in Flanders in 1915 was delivered to its correct destination last week.

    Miscellaneous Maxine 2009

  • This carmel had been founded in Flanders at the time of the Reformation.

    More Encouraging News from the Franciscans of the Immaculate: Their House in Lanherne, England 2009

  • Events dear boy, events: Good news – Flanders is back skip to main | skip to sidebar

    Good news – Flanders is back 2009

  • Cambric was a kind of fine white linen, originally made at Cambray in Flanders, though the name was occasionally also applied to an imitation made of hard-spun cotton.

    Mrs. Hume 2009

  • The mortal combat in Flanders fields, by contrast, was the prelude to a continental darkness far more Stygian than anything that could even have been imagined before it.

    The Pity of War 2009

  • The mortal combat in Flanders fields, by contrast, was the prelude to a continental darkness far more Stygian than anything that could even have been imagined before it.

    The Pity of War 2009

  • Bart De Wever, the Alliance's leader, is also fighting for more administrative control over some small towns that are in Flanders but are part of Brussels's electoral and judicial districts.

    Belgian Bond Auction Eases Concerns John W. Miller 2010

  • Cambric was a kind of fine white linen, originally made at Cambray in Flanders, though the name was occasionally also applied to an imitation made of hard-spun cotton.

    Archive 2009-06-01 2009

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