# Netherlands

Pronunciation: US say "NEH-thur-luhndz" /ˈnɛðɚləndz/; UK say "NEH-thuh-luhndz" /ˈnɛðələndz/

## Proper noun

1. The main constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located primarily in Western Europe and bordering Germany and Belgium, with Amsterdam as its capital and largest city.
   - Simple: A country in Western Europe, next to Germany and Belgium, with Amsterdam as its capital.
   - _The Netherlands borders both Germany and Belgium along its eastern and southern edges._
   - _Dutch growers shipped record volumes of flowers from the Netherlands last spring._
2. The sovereign kingdom in Western Europe composed of four constituent countries, including Aruba, Curaçao and Sint Maarten in the Caribbean.
   - Simple: A kingdom in Western Europe with four parts, among them Aruba, Curaçao and Sint Maarten.
   - _Beyond its European heartland, the Netherlands as a kingdom extends across three Caribbean nations._
   - _In its full constitutional sense, the Netherlands unites four self-governing countries under one crown._

## Noun

4. Alternative letter-case form of netherlands. *(slang)*
   - Simple: Alternative letter-case form of netherlands. Written with a capital N rather than a small one.
   - _He doubled over after a stray elbow caught him in the Netherlands._
   - _She joked that the rough tackle had nearly destroyed his Netherlands._

## Proper noun

3. The Low Countries, the low-lying region of Western Europe that takes in the Netherlands, Belgium, and Luxembourg. *(rare)*
   - Simple: An old name for the low, flat region of Western Europe that includes the Netherlands, Belgium, and Luxembourg.
   - _Spanish armies marched across the Netherlands during the wars of the sixteenth century._
   - _Cloth merchants of the Netherlands grew wealthy from trade along the delta's rivers._

## Origin

The name comes from "nether" (meaning "lower") plus "lands," since the country is very low-lying, with a great part below sea level. It is either a calque or a parallel formation to Dutch "Nederland."

Source: DictionaryAI, https://dictionaryai.com/define/netherlands (written from Wiktionary data, CC BY-SA 4.0: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/).