Definitions

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

  • An inlet of the Pacific Ocean on the southern coast of Oahu, Hawaii, west of Honolulu. It became the site of a naval base after the United States annexed Hawaii in 1898. On Sunday, December 7, 1941, Japanese planes attacked the base, and the United States entered World War II the following day.

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

  • proper noun Deep water harbor on Oahu, Hawaii
  • proper noun US Navy base at the harbor.
  • noun A sneak attack, often using underhanded measures.
  • noun A seminal dramatic event that unites a community and arouses it into action against an enemy.

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

  • noun a harbor on Oahu to the west of Honolulu; location of a United States naval base that was attacked by the Japanese on 7 Dec 1941

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From pearl + harbor

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From the December 7, 1941, surprise attack by the Imperial Japanese Navy on Pearl Harbor.

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Examples

  • One is the catastrophic event model, which I call the Pearl Harbor model, where a dramatic event fundamentally changes how we think and behave.

    TreeHugger 2009

  • One is the catastrophic event model, which I call the Pearl Harbor model, where a dramatic event fundamentally changes how we think and behave.

    TreeHugger 2009

  • One is the catastrophic event model, which I call the Pearl Harbor model, where a dramatic event fundamentally changes how we think and behave.

    TreeHugger 2009

  • The English language goes down the USS Arizona in this novel that envisions the attack on Pearl Harbor from the Japanese point or view.

    2008 February « One-Minute Book Reviews 2008

  • The English language goes down the USS Arizona in this novel that envisions the attack on Pearl Harbor from the Japanese point or view.

    2008 February 29 « One-Minute Book Reviews 2008

  • She is on my Heroines List: as Congresswoman Barbara Lee spoke out, as the choking clouds of dust and debris from the collapsed towers was still hanging in the air, so did Jeanette Rankin speak while the name Pearl Harbor was on the front page of every newspaper.

    Archive 2007-11-01 tanita davis 2007

  • She is on my Heroines List: as Congresswoman Barbara Lee spoke out, as the choking clouds of dust and debris from the collapsed towers was still hanging in the air, so did Jeanette Rankin speak while the name Pearl Harbor was on the front page of every newspaper.

    The WritingYA Weblog: Oh, And One More Thing... tanita davis 2007

  • And, of course, perhaps the most important is the Arizona wreckage at Pearl Harbor, which is really a very, very, very sensitive site, and very little well, it's just not touched at all anymore.

    Gettysburg, Ground Zero: Secular Sacred Spaces 2010

  • And, of course, perhaps the most important is the Arizona wreckage at Pearl Harbor, which is really a very, very, very sensitive site, and very little well, it's just not touched at all anymore.

    Gettysburg, Ground Zero: Secular Sacred Spaces 2010

  • I became known as the Pearl Harbor guy at Panasonic.

    From Those Wonderful Folks Who Gave You Pearl Harbor Jerry Della Femina 2010

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