Definitions

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

  • An island country in the Indian Ocean off southeast India. Inhabited originally by the Vedda, the island was later invaded by the Sinhalese (6th century BC) and the Tamil (10th century AD). The island's lucrative spice trade was controlled from the 12th century onward by the Arabs, Portuguese, Dutch, and British. Ceylon became a British colony in 1802 and achieved independence in 1948. In 1972 the island was declared a republic, adopting the Sinhalese name of Sri Lanka. A civil war between the government and Tamil separatists began in 1983 and ended in 2009 with the defeat of the Tamil army. Colombo is the capital and the largest city.

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

  • proper noun Country in South Asia. Official name: Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka.

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

  • noun a republic on the island of Ceylon; became independent of the United Kingdom in 1948

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Sinhalese ශ්‍රී ලංකාව (śrī laṃkā), from Sanskrit श्री (śrī, "holy") and लंका (lankā, "island").

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Examples

  • National Post, in which he called Sri Lanka a Sinhala Buddhist nation, were taken out of context.

    TIME.com: Top Stories 2009

  • Meanwhile, the organizers of the boycott campaign released a third-video in a planned series of video releases highlighting the need to black-label Sri Lanka products across the world, sources close to the boycott campaign said.

    TamilNet Newswire 2010

  • Apr 03, Colombo: Sri Lanka's elite police Special Task Force (STF) personnel this morning attacked a group of LTTE infiltrators detected in the Panama area in the northern part of Yala Sanctuary in Southern Sri Lanka, the military said.

    Sri Lanka News - ColomboPage.com 2009

  • Apr 03, Colombo: Sri Lanka's elite police Special Task Force (STF) personnel this morning attacked a group of LTTE infiltrators detected in the Panama area in the northern part of Yala Sanctuary in Southern Sri Lanka, the military said.

    Sri Lanka News - ColomboPage.com 2009

  • The official name for Sri Lanka is actually The Republique of Ajantha Splendid Mendis, but its more commonly know as Sri Lanka, which is one of the many nick names for Splendid Mendis.

    Kottu 2008

  • Sri Lanka President attends public rally in Southern Sri Lanka

    Sri Lanka News - ColomboPage.com 2009

  • "homeland" we call Sri Lanka are trying to do at the moment.

    Kottu 2009

  • It took me about thirty seconds to forget why Ceylon became known as Sri Lanka, but it did rouse my interest and out came the Weetabix Atlas.

    A rainy day in Shanghai Neil McCarthy 2012

  • In 2009, a small island nation called Sri Lanka told the United States where it could put its money and its rhetoric, ended 30 years of war and now, in a state of peace, and with the aid of China, boasts a thriving economy that rivals that of America.

    Ru Freeman: A Voice for Palestine Is a Voice for Israel Ru Freeman 2011

  • In the wake of the tsunami, Muralitharan and his manager, Kushil Gunasekera, used the charitable organisation they had already established, The Foundation of Goodness, to ensure the arrival of aid to devastated areas of Seenigama in southern Sri Lanka.

    Muttiah Muralitharan out to finish on a high at the World Cup | Donald McRae 2011

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