Leeward Islands love

Leeward Islands

Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • The northern group of the Lesser Antilles in the West Indies, extending from the Virgin Islands southeast to Dominica. Inhabited by Caribs when Columbus visited them in 1493, the islands were hotly contested by the Spanish, French, and British in the 1600s and 1700s.
  • A chain of small islets of Hawaii in the central Pacific Ocean west-northwest of the main islands. The Leewards constitute a government bird sanctuary.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • proper noun The northern of the Lesser Antilles, consisting of the islands or nations of the Virgin Islands, Antigua, Saint Martin, Saint Kitts, Nevis, Antigua, Barbuda, Montserrat, Guadeloupe, Sint Eustatius, Saba and Dominica

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun a group of islands in the eastern West Indies

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Called leeward because the prevailing winds in the area blow from east to west. Thus, the Leeward Islands are downwind, or leeward of, the easternmost Windward Islands, the group of islands that first meet the trade winds coming from the east.

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