Library / English Dictionary

VA

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

 I. (noun) 

Sense 1

Meaning:

The United States federal department responsible for the interests of military veterans; created in 1989

Synonyms:

Department of Veterans Affairs; VA

Classified under:

Nouns denoting groupings of people or objects

Hypernyms ("VA" is a kind of...):

executive department (a federal department in the executive branch of the government of the United States)

Sense 2

Meaning:

A state in the eastern United States; one of the original 13 colonies; one of the Confederate States in the American Civil War

Synonyms:

Old Dominion; Old Dominion State; VA; Va.; Virginia

Classified under:

Nouns denoting spatial position

Instance hypernyms:

American state (one of the 50 states of the United States)

Meronyms (parts of "VA"):

Virginia Beach (the largest city in Virginia; long overshadowed by Norfolk but growing rapidly since 1970; with 28 miles of public beaches tourism is a major factor in the economy; site of three United States Navy bases)

Bull Run (a creek in northeastern Virginia where two battles were fought in the American Civil War)

Chancellorsville (a village in northeastern Virginia)

Fredericksburg (a town in northeastern Virginia on the Rappahannock River)

Petersburg (a town in southeastern Virginia (south of Richmond); scene of heavy fighting during the American Civil War)

Spotsylvania (a village in northeastern Virginia where battles were fought during the American Civil War)

Yorktown (a historic village in southeastern Virginia to the north of Newport News; site of the last battle of the American Revolution)

Mount Vernon (the former residence of George Washington in northeastern Virginia overlooking the Potomac river)

Alleghenies; Allegheny Mountains (the western part of the Appalachian Mountains; extending from northern Pennsylvania to southwestern Virginia)

Blue Ridge; Blue Ridge Mountains (a range of the Appalachians extending from southern Pennsylvania to northern Georgia)

Chesapeake Bay (a large inlet of the North Atlantic between Virginia and Maryland; fed by Susquehanna River)

Clinch River (a river that rises in southwestern Virginia and flows generally southwestward across eastern Tennessee to the Tennessee River)

Elizabeth River (a short river in southeastern Virginia flowing between Norfolk and Portsmouth into Hampton Roads)

Hampton Roads (a channel in southeastern Virginia through which the Elizabeth River and the James River flow into Chesapeake Bay)

James; James River (a river in Virginia that flows east into Chesapeake Bay at Hampton Roads)

Potomac; Potomac River (a river in the east central United States; rises in West Virginia in the Appalachian Mountains and flows eastward, forming the boundary between Maryland and Virginia, to the Chesapeake Bay)

Rappahannock; Rappahannock River (a river that flows across eastern Virginia into the Tidewater region)

Shenandoah River (a river of northern Virginia that empties into the Potomac at Harpers Ferry)

Shenandoah Valley (a large valley between the Allegheny Mountains and the Blue Ridge Mountains in northern Virginia; site of numerous battles during the American Civil War)

Roanoke (a city in southwestern Virginia)

Portsmouth (a port city in southeastern Virginia on the Elizabeth River opposite Norfolk; naval base; shipyards)

Lynchburg (a city in central Virginia)

Norfolk (port city located in southeastern Virginia on the Elizabeth River at the mouth of Chesapeake Bay; headquarters of the Atlantic fleet of the United States Navy)

Newport News (a port city in southeastern Virginia at the mouth of the James River off Hampton Roads; large shipyards)

Jamestown (a former village on the James River in Virginia to the north of Norfolk; site of the first permanent English settlement in America in 1607)

Blacksburg (a university town in southwestern Virginia (west of Roanoke) in the Allegheny Mountains)

capital of Virginia; Richmond (capital of the state of Virginia located in the east central part of the state; was capital of the Confederacy during the American Civil War)

Shenandoah National Park (a national park in Virginia for the Blue Ridge Mountains)

Domain member region:

siege of Yorktown; Yorktown (in 1781 the British under Cornwallis surrendered after a siege of three weeks by American and French troops; the surrender ended the American Revolution)

Wilderness Campaign (American Civil War; a series of indecisive battles in Grant's campaign (1864) against Lee in which both armies suffered terrible losses)

battle of Spotsylvania Courthouse; Spotsylvania (a battle between the armies of Grant and Lee during the Wilderness Campaign)

Petersburg; Petersburg Campaign (the final campaign of the American Civil War (1864-65); Union forces under Grant besieged and finally defeated Confederate forces under Lee)

Battle of Fredericksburg; Fredericksburg (an important battle in the American Civil War (1862); the Union Army under A. E. Burnside was defeated by the Confederate Army under Robert E. Lee)

Chancellorsville (a major battle in the American Civil War (1863); the Confederates under Robert E. Lee defeated the Union forces under Joseph Hooker)

Battle of Bull Run; Bull Run (either of two battles during the American Civil War (1861 and 1862); Confederate forces defeated the Federal army in both battles)

Wilderness (a wooded region in northeastern Virginia near Spotsylvania where bloody but inconclusive battles were fought in the American Civil War)

Holonyms ("VA" is a part of...):

America; the States; U.S.; U.S.A.; United States; United States of America; US; USA (North American republic containing 50 states - 48 conterminous states in North America plus Alaska in northwest North America and the Hawaiian Islands in the Pacific Ocean; achieved independence in 1776)

South (the region of the United States lying to the south of the Mason-Dixon line)

Holonyms ("VA" is a member of...):

Confederacy; Confederate States; Confederate States of America; Dixie; Dixieland; South (the southern states that seceded from the United States in 1861)

Credits

 Context examples: 

At virst ’e vas that dazed that ’e didn’t know if ’e vas in church or in ’Orsemonger Gaol; but ven I’d bit ’is two ears ’e shook ’isself together. ‘Ve’ll try it again, Buck,’ says ’e. ‘The mark!’ says I. And ’e vinked all that vas left o’ one eye.

(Rodney Stone, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Yell, boys, that vas vat I wondered, when sudden I seed two legs a-stickin’ up out o’ the crowd a long vay off, just like these two vingers, d’ye see, and I knewed they vas Bob’s legs, seein’ that ’e ’ad kind o’ yellow small clothes vid blue ribbons—vich blue vas ’is colour—at the knee.

(Rodney Stone, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Ven the day came round, all the volk came to Figg’s Amphitheatre, the same that vos in Tottenham Court, an’ Bob Vittaker ’e vos there, and the Eytalian Gondoleery cove ’e vas there, and all the purlitest, genteelest crowd that ever vos, twenty thousand of ’em, all sittin’ with their ’eads like purtaties on a barrer, banked right up round the stage, and me there to pick up Bob, d’ye see, and Jack Figg ’imself just for fair play to do vot was right by the cove from voreign parts.

(Rodney Stone, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

I vas coming up in the Bristol coach yesterday, and the guard he told me that he had vifteen thousand pound in hard gold in the boot that had been zent up to back our man.

(Rodney Stone, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

They vas packed all round, the folks was, but down through the middle of ’em was a passage just so as the gentry could come through to their seats, and the stage it vas of wood, as the custom then vas, and a man’s ’eight above the ’eads of the people.

(Rodney Stone, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

I ’eard the thump of it, and I kind o’ velt somethin’ vistle past me, but ven I looked there vas the Eytalian a feelin’ of ’is muscles in the middle o’ the stage, and as to Bob, there vern’t no sign’ of ’im at all no more’n if ’e’d never been.

(Rodney Stone, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

—him vot told the old Dook of Cumberland that all he vanted vas to fight the King o’ Proosia’s guard, day by day, year in, year out, until ’e ’ad worked out the whole regiment of ’em—and the smallest of ’em six foot long.

(Rodney Stone, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Why, said a loud, consequential man from immediately behind me, speaking with a broad western burr, vrom what I’ve zeen of this young Gloucester lad, I doan’t think Harrison could have stood bevore him for ten rounds when he vas in his prime.

(Rodney Stone, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

So the King ’e sent one of his genelmen down to Figg and he said to him: ‘’Ere’s a cove vot cracks a bone every time ’e lets vly, and it’ll be little credit to the Lunnon boys if they lets ’im get avay vithout a vacking.’ So Figg he ups, and he says, ‘I do not know, master, but he may break one of ’is countrymen’s jawbones vid ’is vist, but I’ll bring ’im a Cockney lad and ’e shall not be able to break ’is jawbone with a sledge ’ammer.’ I was with Figg in Slaughter’s coffee-’ouse, as then vas, ven ’e says this to the King’s genelman, and I goes so, I does!

(Rodney Stone, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Vell, ve chased ’im down ’Olburn, an’ down Fleet Street, an’ down Cheapside, an’ past the ’Change, and on all the vay to Voppin’ an’ we only catched ’im in the shippin’ office, vere ’e vas askin’ ’ow soon ’e could get a passage to voreign parts.

(Rodney Stone, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)