Adjacent Words

Middle East definitions

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WordNet (r) 3.0 (2005)

n
1: the area around the eastern Mediterranean; from Turkey to northern Africa and eastward to Iran; the site of such ancient civilizations as Phoenicia and Babylon and Egypt and the birthplace of Judaism and Christianity and Islam; had continuous economic and political turmoil in the 20th century; "the Middle East is the cradle of Western civilization" [syn: Middle East, Mideast, Near East]

Merriam Webster's

geographical name the countries of SW Asia & N Africa — usually considered to include the countries extending from Libya on the W to Afghanistan on the E • Middle Eastern or Mideastern adjective • Middle Easterner noun

Britannica Concise

Region comprising the countries of SW Asia and NE Africa. It is an unofficial and imprecise term that now generally encompasses the lands around the S and E shores of the Mediterranean Sea, notably Libya, Egypt, Jordan, Israel, Lebanon, and Syria, as well as Iran, Iraq, and the countries of the Arabian Peninsula. The term was formerly used by Western geographers and historians to describe the region from the Persian Gulf to S.E. Asia.

Collin's Cobuild Dictionary

Frequency: The word is one of the 1500 most common words in English. The Middle East is the area around the eastern Mediterranean that includes Iran and all the countries in Asia to the west and south-west of Iran. The two great rivers of the Middle East rise in the mountains of Turkey. N-PROPER: the N

Moby Thesaurus

Africa, America, Antipodes, Asia, Asia Major, Asia Minor, Australasia, East, Eastern Hemisphere, Eurasia, Europe, Far East, Levant, Near East, New World, Occident, Oceania, Old World, Orient, West, Western Hemisphere, continent, down under, eastland, landmass, the old country