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palmyra

noun

Simple meaning

An old desert city in present-day Syria.

Pronunciation

Say it like this:

pahmyruh

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US device voice
IPA pronunciation (US)

ˈpɑˈmaɪɹə

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.

Word Review

Definition

Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.

noun

  1. An ancient city, an oasis in the Syrian Desert, in present-day central Syria, recorded historically from around 2000 BCE, subsequently subject to various empires and destroyed in 273 CE and again in 1400, when it was reduced to a village.

  2. A number of townships in the United States, listed under Palmyra Township.

  3. A palm (Borassus flabellifer) with straight black upright trunk and palmate leaves, whose wood, fruit, and roots can be used for many purposes.

Word Aura™

How this word commonly comes across.

Aura for this meaning

This meaning: An ancient city, an oasis in the Syrian Desert, in present-day central Syria, recorded historically from around 2000 BCE, subsequently subject to various empires and destroyed in 273 CE and again in 1400, when it was reduced to a village.

Used this way, palmyra is a reasonably familiar word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. It turns up most in historical writing contexts.

Emotional tone
Neutral
Formality
Neutral
Intensity
Not strongly marked
How common
Moderately common
Connotation
Matter-of-fact
Usage feel
Neutral and straightforward

Where it naturally appears

  • Historical writing

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.