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by having an empire, stretching over half of africa, the americas, india and china, oceania and the Middle East




It is a common misconception that the 'great' is a title indicative of 'greatness' as alluded to above, as the actual origin is from a mostly-unused meaning of 'great'. In the case of Great Britain the 'great' just means 'largest' since Great Britain is the largest island in the British archipelago*. It is a purely geographical term.

*A collection of islands off the North-Western coast of continental Europe, on which the Republic of Ireland and United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland can be found.

Addendum: it IS a geographical term but refers to the fact that what is now Brittany (in France) was also called "Britain". Great Britain was so named to distinguish it from Brittany - known as "Less/ Lesser Britain"

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12y ago

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