Definitions

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

  • An island country of the west-central Pacific Ocean near the equator. It includes the former Gilbert Islands, Banaba (Ocean Island), and the Phoenix and Line islands. Settled by Austronesian peoples before the 1st century AD, the islands, together with the Ellice Islands, became a British protectorate (1892–1916) and subsequently a crown colony under the name the Gilbert and Ellice Island Colony. The Ellice Islands gained independence (1978) as Tuvalu and the remaining islands (1979) as Kiribati. Tarawa is the capital.

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

  • proper noun Country in Oceania. Official name in English: Republic of Kiribati.
  • proper noun The Micronesian language spoken in Kiribati, also known as Gilbertese.

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

  • noun an island republic in the west central Pacific just to the south of the equator

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Gilbertese Kiribati, a corruption of English Gilbert, a shortening of Gilbert Islands.

Support

Help support Wordnik (and make this page ad-free) by adopting the word Kiribati.

Examples

Comments

Log in or sign up to get involved in the conversation. It's quick and easy.