british west indies
noun
Simple meaning
The islands in the West Indies that were once under British control, including the Bahamas, Saint Lucia, Antigua, Grenada, Jamaica, Barbados.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
britihshwuhstihndeezSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
ˈbɹɪtɪʃwɛstɪndiz
This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
noun
The islands in the West Indies that were formerly under British control, including the Bahamas, Saint Lucia, Antigua, Grenada, Jamaica, Barbados, and Trinidad
historicalformer name
The British colonies in around the Caribbean.
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: The islands in the West Indies that were formerly under British control, including the Bahamas, Saint Lucia, Antigua, Grenada, Jamaica, Barbados, and Trinidad
Used this way, british west indies is a specialist word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. It turns up most in technical or specialist writing contexts.
- Emotional tone
- Neutral
- Formality
- Specialist/technical
- Intensity
- Not strongly marked
- How common
- Specialized
- Connotation
- Clinical and technical
- Usage feel
- Technical and specialized
Where it naturally appears
- Technical/specialist writing
Usage note
In general conversation this sense usually needs explaining — outside its field, people reach for a plainer word.
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.