Word.ws English Dictionary

Albion

/ˈælbɪən/US/ˈælbi.ən/

Albion proper noun: great Britain (or sometimes just England or the British Isles).

albion: great Britain (or sometimes just England or the British Isles)
Image: Ptolemy, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Proper noun

Albion

  1. (poetic) Great Britain (or sometimes just England or the British Isles).
    • [M]ightie Albion, father of the bold / And warlike people which the Britaine Iſlands hold. / For Albion the ſonne of Neptune was, / Who for the proofe of his great puiſſance, / Out of his Albion did on dry-foot pas / Into old Gall, that now is cleeped France, / To fight with Hercules, that did...1596, Edmund Spenser, “Book IIII, Canto XI”, in The Faerie Queene. […], part II (books IV–VI), London: […] [Richard Field] for William Ponsonby, →OCLC, page 160
  2. A census-designated place in Mendocino County, California.
  3. A city, the county seat of Edwards County, Illinois.
  4. A town, the county seat of Noble County, Indiana, also located in Albion Township and Jefferson Township. Named after Albion, New York.
  5. A town in Kennebec County, Maine.
  6. A city, the county seat of Boone County, Nebraska.
  7. A village, the county seat of Orleans County, New York.
  8. A village in the town of Lincoln, Rhode Island.
  9. A town and unincorporated community in Dane County, Wisconsin.
  10. A number of townships in the United States, listed under Albion Township.
  11. A suburb of Melbourne in the City of Brimbank, Victoria, Australia
  12. Any of a number of football clubs in Great Britain, including West Bromwich Albion F.C., a football club from West Bromwich in the West Midlands, Brighton & Hove Albion F.C., a football club from the city of Brighton and Hove in Sussex, and Stirling Albion F.C., a football club in the city of Stirling in central Scotland.
    • The Reds laid siege to the Albion goal throughout, with Jordan Henderson striking the underside of the bar and Dirk Kuyt the inside of the post.2012 April 22, Sam Sheringham, “Liverpool 0-1 West Brom”, in BBC Sport

Origin of Albion

From Middle English Albion, from Latin Albiōn, an Ancient Gallo-Latin name for Britain (Middle Welsh Albbu, Old Irish Albu), from Proto-Celtic *Albiū, ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *albʰós (“white”), whence also Latin albus (“white”) and Ancient Greek ἀλφός (alphós, “whiteness, white leprosy”). The primary meaning of the Common Celtic word is "upper world" (as opposed to underworld), with semasiological development similar to e.g. Russian свет (svet, “world; light”). It is often hypothesised that the Romans took it as connected with albus (“white”), in reference to the white cliffs of Dover.

Words formed from Albion

Questions about Albion

What does Albion mean?
Albion means great Britain (or sometimes just England or the British Isles).
What part of speech is Albion?
Albion is a proper noun.
How do you pronounce Albion?
Albion is pronounced /ˈælbi.ən/ (US).

Words near Albion in the dictionary

  1. albinotic
  2. Albinson
  3. albinterferon
  4. albinuria
  5. Albinus' muscle
  6. Albion
  7. Albion metal
  8. Albionean
  9. Albioner
  10. Albioners
  11. Albionian

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: Albion (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-Albion.wav.

Cite this entry: “Albion.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/albion. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.