America

1. (also the Americas) land mass of the W hemisphere consisting of the continents of North and South America joined by the Isthmus of Panama. The continent was originally inhabited by American Indians and Inuit peoples. The NE coastline of North America was visited by Norse seamen in the 8th or 9th century, but European colonization followed the explorations of Columbus, who reached the West Indies in 1492 and the South American mainland in 1498.
2. widely used informal name for the United States. The name America dates from the early 16th century and is believed to derive from the Latin form (Americus) of the given name of Amerigo Vespucci, who explored the E coast of South America in at least two voyages between 1499 and 1502. Vespucci's explorations convinced Europeans that these lands were not part of Asia (as Columbus thought) but rather a "New World." The name first appeared on maps by German cartographer Martin Weldseemüller in 1507.

American adj. & n.