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ICELAND
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I. (noun)
Sense 1
Meaning:
A volcanic island in the North Atlantic near the Arctic Circle
Classified under:
Nouns denoting spatial position
Instance hypernyms:
island (a land mass (smaller than a continent) that is surrounded by water)
Meronyms (parts of "Iceland"):
Iceland; Republic of Iceland (an island republic on the island of Iceland; became independent of Denmark in 1944)
Holonyms ("Iceland" is a part of...):
Atlantic; Atlantic Ocean (the 2nd largest ocean; separates North and South America on the west from Europe and Africa on the east)
Derivation:
Icelander (a native or inhabitant of Iceland)
Sense 2
Meaning:
An island republic on the island of Iceland; became independent of Denmark in 1944
Synonyms:
Iceland; Republic of Iceland
Classified under:
Nouns denoting spatial position
Instance hypernyms:
European country; European nation (any one of the countries occupying the European continent)
Meronyms (parts of "Iceland"):
capital of Iceland; Reykjavik (the capital and chief port of Iceland on the southwestern coast of Iceland; buildings are heated by natural hot water)
Meronyms (members of "Iceland"):
Icelander (a native or inhabitant of Iceland)
Holonyms ("Iceland" is a part of...):
Iceland (a volcanic island in the North Atlantic near the Arctic Circle)
Europe (the 2nd smallest continent (actually a vast peninsula of Eurasia); the British use 'Europe' to refer to all of the continent except the British Isles)
Holonyms ("Iceland" is a member of...):
NATO; North Atlantic Treaty Organization (an international organization created in 1949 by the North Atlantic Treaty for purposes of collective security)
Derivation:
Icelander (a native or inhabitant of Iceland)
Context examples:
Here, in the whirlpool of European races, the Ugric tribe bore down from Iceland the fighting spirit which Thor and Wodin gave them, which their Berserkers displayed to such fell intent on the seaboards of Europe, ay, and of Asia and Africa too, till the peoples thought that the were-wolves themselves had come.
(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)
Founded by Erik the Red around 985AD after his exile from Iceland (or so the Sagas tell us), Norse communities in Greenland thrived for centuries – even gaining a bishop – before vanishing in the 1400s, leaving only ruins.
(Over-hunting walruses contributed to the collapse of Norse Greenland, University of Cambridge)
They were those which treat of the haunts of sea-fowl; of the solitary rocks and promontories by them only inhabited; of the coast of Norway, studded with isles from its southern extremity, the Lindeness, or Naze, to the North Cape—Nor could I pass unnoticed the suggestion of the bleak shores of Lapland, Siberia, Spitzbergen, Nova Zembla, Iceland, Greenland, with the vast sweep of the Arctic Zone, and those forlorn regions of dreary space,—that reservoir of frost and snow, where firm fields of ice, the accumulation of centuries of winters, glazed in Alpine heights above heights, surround the pole, and concentre the multiplied rigours of extreme cold.
(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)
But Iceland’s most celebrated medieval poem, Vǫluspá (‘The prophecy of the seeress’) does appear to give an impression of what the eruption was like.
(Volcanic eruption influenced Iceland’s conversion to Christianity, University of Cambridge)
The researchers observed that enough CO2 was transferred from the magma into gas over the days before eruption to indicate that CO2 monitoring could be a useful way of spotting the precursors to eruptions in Iceland.
(‘Crystal clocks’ used to time magma storage before volcanic eruptions, University of Cambridge)
The effects of the Eldgjá eruption must have been devastating for the young colony on Iceland – very likely, land was abandoned and famine severe.
(Volcanic eruption influenced Iceland’s conversion to Christianity, University of Cambridge)
The Eldgjá lava flood affected southern Iceland within a century of the island’s settlement by Vikings and Celts around 874, but until now the date of the eruption has been uncertain, hindering investigation of its likely impacts.
(Volcanic eruption influenced Iceland’s conversion to Christianity, University of Cambridge)
Having dated the eruption, the researchers found that Iceland’s most celebrated medieval poem, which describes the end of the pagan gods and the coming of a new, singular god, describes the eruption and uses memories of it to stimulate the Christianisation of Iceland.
(Volcanic eruption influenced Iceland’s conversion to Christianity, University of Cambridge)
The poem’s interpretation as a prophecy of the end of the pagan gods and their replacement by the one, singular god, suggests that memories of this terrible volcanic eruption were purposefully provoked to stimulate the Christianisation of Iceland.
(Volcanic eruption influenced Iceland’s conversion to Christianity, University of Cambridge)
The poem, which can be dated as far back as 961, foretells the end of Iceland’s pagan gods and the coming of a new, singular god: in other words, the conversion of Iceland to Christianity, which was formalised around the turn of the eleventh century.
(Volcanic eruption influenced Iceland’s conversion to Christianity, University of Cambridge)
