Syria
- 1A country in West Asia, in the Middle East, officially called the Syrian Arab Republic, with its capital at Damascus.
Syria declared independence from France in 1946.
Archaeologists have uncovered ancient cities throughout Syria's eastern desert.
Note
The name is far older than the state. Greek Syria was shortened from Assyria, which goes back through Akkadian to Aššur, though the land's own ancient inhabitants called it Aram. Today the name belongs to the republic governed from Damascus, a country narrower than the historical region once called by the same word. Context, or the phrase Greater Syria, keeps the two apart.
- 2A historical region in West Asia stretching from southeast Turkey to the Sinai Peninsula, between the Mediterranean Sea and the Euphrates and Arabian Desert; also called Greater Syria.
For centuries, caravans crossed Syria carrying goods between Mesopotamia and the Mediterranean coast.
Twelfth-century pilgrims passing through Syria visited cities from Aleppo to Jerusalem.
SimilarLevant
Note
A label of older travel and geographical writing, where Syria runs unbroken from the Taurus to the Sinai. Carl Ritter, in William L. Gage's 1866 translation, describes a belt "traversing all Syria" between those limits. Writers who mean the whole span today often say Greater Syria, the Levant or Syria-Palestine, so that readers do not mistake it for the present-day country.
- 3An ancient Roman province in the eastern Mediterranean, existing from 64 BCE to 135 CE.
Several Roman legions were stationed in Syria to defend the eastern frontier.
Wealthy merchants in Syria shipped wine and textiles to ports across the empire.
Note
A name in Roman history has edges that a region lacks. This Syria begins and ends on fixed dates, and it survives now only as a former political division. In classical texts, read the word as that province rather than the wider region. Writing Roman Syria keeps the two apart when the period is not obvious.
Use it in a sentence
Write your own sentence with Syria, and AI will tell you whether it fits and which meaning you used.
Origin
From Middle English Sirie, from Latin Sȳria, from Ancient Greek Σῠρῐ́ᾱ (Sŭrĭ́ā), which was shortened from Ἀσσυρία (Assyria); this traces back through Akkadian to Aššur. Its ancient inhabitants originally called the land Aram, but the Greeks applied the name Syria because the region had once been ruled by the Neo-Assyrian Empire, and over time Syria came to denote the broader Levant while Assyria referred to Mesopotamia.