From Middle English Engelond, England, from Old English Engla land, from genitive of Engle ("the Angles") + land ("land").

• (British) IPA: /ˈɪŋɡlənd/, /ˈɪŋɡələnd/
• (America) IPA: /ˈɪŋɡlənd/, /ˈɪŋlənd/

1. The kingdom established in southeast Britain by Æthelstan of House of Wessex in 927 and its various successor states, now the largest and most populous constituent country of the United Kingdom

   (by extension, sometimes, proscribed) the area of this kingdom generally, south of Scotland and east of Wales, including (historical) this area of Celtic Britain and Roman Britain or the post-Roman kingdoms of the Angles and other Germans taken collectively.

   • 1595 December 9 (first known performance), William Shakespeare, “The life and death of King Richard the Second”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies: Published According to the True Originall Copies (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC ↗, [Act II, scene i]:

     Gaunt ...This royall throne of Kings, this sceptred Ile,
     This earth of maiesty, this seate of Mars,
     This other Eden, demy Paradice,
     This fortresse built by Nature for her selfe,
     Against infection and the hand of warre,
     This happy breede of men, this little world,
     This precious stone set in the siluer sea,
     Which serues it in the office of a wall,
     Or as moate defensiue to a house,
     Against the enuie of lesse happier lands.
     This blessed plot, this earth, this realme, this England...
     Is now leasde out...
     That England that was wont to conquer others,
     Hath made a shamefull conquest
     of it selfe...

   • 1804, William Blake, Milton, Vol. I, Preface:

     And did those feet in ancient time
     Walk upon England’s mountains green?
     And was the holy Lamb of God
     On England’s pleasant pastures seen?...
     I will not cease from Mental Fight,
     Nor shall my Sword sleep in my hand,
     Till we have built Jerusalem
     In England’s green & pleasant Land.

   • 1941, George Orwell, The Lion and the Unicorn, Pt. I:

     England is not the jewelled isle of Shakespeare's much-quoted passage, nor is it the inferno depicted by Dr Goebbels. More than either it resembles a family, a rather stuffy Victorian family, with not many black sheep but with all its cupboards bursting with skeletons. It has rich relations who have to be kow-towed to and poor relations who are horribly sat upon, and there is a deep conspiracy of silence about the source of the family income.

   • 2012, Maureen Johnson, The Madness Underneath:

     "This is England," he explained. "Tell someone it's a procedure, and they'll believe you. The pointless procedure is one of our great natural resources."

   • 2013 March 25, David Sedaris, "Long Way Home ↗" in The New Yorker:

     Had they responded this way in France or America, this wouldn't have surprised me, but wasn't everyone in England supposed to be a detective? Wasn't every crime, no matter how complex, solved in a timely fashion by either a professional or a hobbyist? That's the impression you get from British books and TV shows.

   Just close your eyes and think of England.
2. (chiefly law, historical or obsolete) Synonym of England and Wales.
3. (proscribed, sometimes, offensive) Synonym of United Kingdom.
4. Surname.
5. (United States) A city in Lonoke County, Arkansas.

• See Thesaurus:England

• French: Angleterre
• German: England
• Italian: Inghilterra
• Portuguese: Inglaterra
• Russian: А́нглия
• Spanish: Inglaterra