Definitions

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

  • noun A supercontinent that included all the world's landmasses in the late Paleozoic and, according to the theory of plate tectonics, subsequently broke apart into Laurasia and Gondwana.

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

  • proper noun A supercontinent that included all the landmasses of the earth before the Triassic period and that broke up into Laurasia and Gondwana.

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

  • noun (plate tectonics) a hypothetical continent including all the landmass of the earth prior to the Triassic period when it split into Laurasia and Gondwanaland

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[pan– + Greek gaia, earth.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From pan- + γαῖα (gaia, "earth, land"), probably after German Pangäa, coined by Alfred Wegener in 1915.

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Examples

  • All the great continents of the world, he suggested, had once been joined up in a gigantic super-continent, which he called Pangaea.

    THE GREATEST SHOW ON EARTH RICHARD DAWKINS 2009

  • All the great continents of the world, he suggested, had once been joined up in a gigantic super-continent, which he called Pangaea.

    THE GREATEST SHOW ON EARTH RICHARD DAWKINS 2009

  • "The goal of Pangaea is to remain independent forever and not sell the company," he says.

    Pangea Organic's line of natural skin-care products is growing 2009

  • Jan. 6, 1912: Alfred Wegner, a German scientist and explorer, stuns a meeting of the German Geological Association when he presents a theory that all of the Earth’s continents were once part of a supercontinent he called Pangaea, but that tidal forces caused them to drift apart.

    Breaking Up Was Hard to Do 2009

  • Some 250 million years ago, the Earth contained a single landmass known as Pangaea.

    The Real Story of Globalization Charles C. Mann 2011

  • "The Pangaea is a very practical boat because you can switch everything off and run it by hand, so if the hydrolics fail, we can still sail the boat manually."

    Sailing the Eco-Friendly Seas 2008

  • Last time all the landmass clumped up, it formed a supercontinent called Pangaea.

    News 2012

  • Last time all the landmass clumped up, it formed a supercontinent called Pangaea.

    News 2012

  • The continents are last thought to have come together 300 million years ago into a supercontinent called Pangaea.

    BBC News - Home 2012

  • Scientists have long thought that Earth's continents once formed a "supercontinent" called Pangaea.

    NPR Topics: News 2011

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