Britannia

Learned borrowing from Latin Britannia. Doublet of Britain and Brittany.

• enPR: brĭ-tăn′yə, brĭ-tăn′ē-ə, IPA^(key): /bɹɪˈtæn.jə/, /bɹɪˈtæn.i.ə/
• IPA^(key): /bɹɪˈtæn.ɪ.ə/

• Audio (Southern England):

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Britannia

1. A female personification of Britain or the United Kingdom.
   • 1740, James Thomson (lyrics), Thomas Arne (music), Rule, Britannia!

     Rule, Britannia! Britannia rule the waves / Britons never, never shall be slaves

   • 1951 October, R. S. McNaught, “Lines of Approach”, in Railway Magazine, pages 703-704:

     I recall the height of comfort attained by the green-cushioned "first" with starched white antimacassars and a pretentious grey floor mat on which it seemed a sacrilege to stand, as it was embellished with the North Western conception of Britannia, complete with trident.

3. (historical) A province of the Roman Empire, covering most of the island of Britain.

   Synonym: Roman Britain

4. A number of places in Canada:
   1. A neighbourhood of Calgary, Alberta.
   2. A settlement in Newfoundland and Labrador.
   3. A community in Lake of Bays township, Muskoka district municipality, Ontario.
   4. A group of neighbourhoods in the west end of Ottawa, Ontario.
   5. A former village in Mississauga, Regional Municipality of Peel, Ontario.
   6. A rural municipality in western Saskatchewan; in full, the Rural Municipality of Britannia No. 502.
5. A southern suburb of Bacup, Rossendale borough, Lancashire, England (OS grid ref SD8821).
6. A suburb in Cymmer community, Rhondda Cynon Taf borough county borough, Wales (OS grid ref ST0390). ^[1]
7. Ellipsis of Britannia metal (“a silvery alloy of tin with copper and antimony, somewhat like pewter”).

   Alternative forms: britannia, britannia metal

• Britannia metal
• Britannia silver
• Cool Britannia

• Caledonia
• John Bull

• “Britannia”, in OneLook Dictionary Search.
• “Britannia”, in The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, 5th edition, Boston, Mass.: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2016, →ISBN.
• William Dwight Whitney, Benjamin E[li] Smith, editors (1911), “Britannia”, in The Century Dictionary […], New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., →OCLC.
• “Britannia”, in Collins English Dictionary.
• “Britannia”, in Dictionary.com Unabridged, Dictionary.com, LLC, 1995–present.
• “Britannia”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022.
• “Britannia”, in Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster, 1996–present.
• “Britannia, n.”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.
• Douglas Harper (2001–2025) “Britannia”, in Online Etymology Dictionary.
• William Dwight Whitney and Benjamin E[li] Smith, editors (1914), “metal”, in The Century Dictionary: An Encyclopedic Lexicon of the English Language, revised edition, volume III, New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., →OCLC, page 3731, column 1.

Learned borrowing from Latin Britannia.

• IPA^(key): /ˈbritɑnːiɑ/, [ˈbrit̪ɑ̝nˌniɑ̝]
• Rhymes: -iɑ
• Syllabification^(key): Bri‧tan‧ni‧a
• Hyphenation^(key): Bri‧tan‧nia

Britannia

1. (loosely) Britain (the United Kingdom, a kingdom and country in Northern Europe including the island of Great Britain as well as Northern Ireland on the northeastern portion of the island of Ireland)
2. Britain (great Britain, a large island (sometimes also including some of the surrounding smaller islands) off the north-west coast of Western Europe, made up of England, Scotland, and Wales; especially (but not exclusively) during antiquity)
3. (historical) Britannia (a province of the Roman Empire, covering most of the island of Britain)
4. Britannia (female personification of Britain)

Learned borrowing from Latin Britannia. Doublet of Bretagna.

• IPA^(key): /briˈtan.nja/
• Rhymes: -annja
• Hyphenation: Bri‧tàn‧nia

Britannia f

1. (archaic) Great Britain, Britain

   Synonym: (usual term) Bretagna

2. (historical) Britannia (a province of the Roman Empire, covering most of the island of Britain)
3. Britannia (female personification of Britain)

• antibrina

• Brittannia, Brittania, Britania
• Bretannia, Brettannia, Brettania
• Brictania, Brintania (post-classical), Brytannia (Medieval Latin)

Attested from the 1st century BCE, directly or from Ancient Greek Βρεττανία (Brettanía), Πρεττανία (Prettanía) (in Diodorus), earlier νῆσος Πρεττανική (nêsos Prettanikḗ) or Βρεττανίαι (Brettaníai), used by Pytheas (4th century BCE) of the entire archipelago now known as the British Isles.

The Ancient Greek name is ultimately from a Celtic ethnonym, reconstructed as early Brythonic *Pritani, perhaps from a Proto-Celtic *Kʷritanī, *Kʷritenī, whence Welsh Prydyn (“Picts”), Old Irish Cruthne, Cru(i)then-túath (“Picts”), from Proto-Indo-European *kʷer- (“to do”).

• (Classical Latin) IPA^(key): [brɪˈtan.ni.a]
• (modern Italianate Ecclesiastical) IPA^(key): [briˈt̪an.ni.a]
• Note: only found in hexameters with a short first syllable, except for a single instance of /britt-/ in Lucretius. Sergius on Donatus testifies to /a:n/ rather than /ann/. Romance descendants seem to consistently point to /tt/.

Britannia f (genitive Britanniae); first declension

1. Britain (a region of Western Europe, the country of the Britons)
2. Great Britain (an island of Western Europe)

   Synonym: Albiōn

3. Britannia (a province of the Roman Empire in Western Europe, on the island of Great Britain)
4. (Medieval Latin) Brittany (a region and peninsula in modern France, populated by speakers of Breton)

   Synonym: Armorica

5. (Medieval Latin) Wales (a region in the modern United Kingdom, populated by speakers of Welsh)

   Synonyms: Cambria, Wallia

• (Wales): In medieval Welsh sources before the 13th century, Britannia was used both in an expansive sense to refer to the island of Britain and in a restricted sense to refer to Wales, i.e. the remaining land of the Britons. From the 12th century the restricted sense of the term was increasingly displaced by Wallia, a name derived from Old English, and later by Cambria.

First-declension noun, with locative.

• “Britann-” in the Thesaurus Linguae Latinae (TLL Open Access), Berlin (formerly Leipzig): De Gruyter (formerly Teubner), 1900–present
• “BRITANNICAE INSULAE or BRITANNIA”, in William Smith, editor (1854, 1857), A Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography, volume 1 & 2, London: Walton and Maberly
• Britannia in Gaffiot, Félix (1934) Dictionnaire illustré latin-français, Hachette, page 228/3.
• Britannia in Georges, Karl Ernst, Georges, Heinrich (1913–1918) Ausführliches lateinisch-deutsches Handwörterbuch, 8th edition, volume 1, Hahnsche Buchhandlung, columns 865–866