Link Centre Dictionary

Prussia

prus·sia

UK/ˈpɹʌ.ʃə/ US/ˈpɹʊ.ʃɐ/ uncommon

noun

1.

a former kingdom in north-central Europe including present-day northern Germany and northern Poland

  • “in the 19th century Prussia led the economic and political unification of the German states”
Synonyms

Origin

From New Latin Prūssia, a Latinization used by Peter of Dusburg of a Baltic (Old Prussian, or perhaps Lithuanian or Latvian) autonym. In the Baltic languages it has a long /uː/. The Proto-Indo-European source of the name is unclear; more at Prussia. Compare the Proto-Balto-Slavic *prus-sk-, whose cognates include Proto-Slavic *prъskati (“to splutter, to splash”), Sanskrit प्रुष्णोति (pruṣṇóti, “to sprinkle”), and thus signifying "watery land". The Middle English designation for the region, Pruce, derives from the same Latinization and is the source of the terms pruce and spruce.

Related words

Word family

Broader terms

Parts

Part of

WordNet 2.1 (Princeton University). Wiktionary (CC BY-SA). CMU Pronouncing Dictionary. WordNet 2.1 Copyright Princeton University. All rights reserved. Wiktionary content is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike Licence.