Definitions

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

  • A country of western Africa on the Atlantic coast. Inhabited by the Temne when the Portuguese first visited the coast in 1460, the region was later settled by Mande-speaking peoples from present-day Liberia. In 1792 freed slaves were brought from Nova Scotia to found the colony of Freetown, which was transferred to British administration in 1808. The region became a British protectorate in 1896 and achieved independence in 1961. Sierra Leone became a republic in 1971. Freetown is the capital and the largest city.

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

  • proper noun Country in Western Africa. Official name: Republic of Sierra Leone.

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

  • noun a republic in West Africa; achieved independence from the United Kingdom in 1961

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Spanish sierra ("mountain") + leona ("lioness"), from Portuguese serra ("mountain") + leoa ("lioness") (named by Pedro de Sintra in 1462).

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Examples

  • OKE: Sierra Leone is short of the resources needed to fully rehabilitate all of the ex-child combatants.

    CNN Transcript Aug 27, 2005 2005

  • One, African Minerals, is active in Sierra Leone, the world's biggest source of blood diamonds (African Minerals was formerly called the Sierra Leone Diamond Company).

    Guy Fawkes' blog 2009

  • The story is similar in Sierra Leone, which is rebuilding from decades of civil war.

    Greater Support Urged for Private Sector in Post-Conflict Africa 2011

  • Under a deal, Saif al-Islam would be taken to The Hague where the ICC shares a detention unit with the UN Yugoslavia war crimes tribunal and the Special Court for Sierra Leone, which is trying the former Liberian president Charles Taylor.

    Gaddafi's son says he is innocent 2011

  • The Times further reported, "lawyers say such a declaration allows for the joining of the court on an ad-hoc basis and has been allowed before in the case of Sierra Leone, which is not a member."

    Kristen Breitweiser: Just Desserts -- Sweetening President Obama on Why We Need a Truth Commission 2009

  • A similar commission effort was launched in Sierra Leone, which is struggling to recover from its own decade-long civil war that began in 1991.

    ANC Daily News Briefing 2006

  • A similar commission was set up in Sierra Leone, which is struggling to recover from its own decade-long civil war that began in 1991.

    ANC Daily News Briefing 2006

  • FALL: Well, Sierra Leone's issue is both an internal one and a sub - regional one because it implicates also the manner of the union countries, namely Sierra Leone, Guinea and Liberia.

    CNN Transcript Dec 29, 2001 2001

  • By comparison, 11,000 UN troops are deployed in Sierra Leone, which is one 30th the size of the DRC, and 42,000 in tiny Kosovo.

    ANC Daily News Briefing 2000

  • U.N. Security Council welcomed the political progress made in three countries, namely Sierra Leone, the Central African Republic and

    ANC Daily News Briefing 1998

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