Word.ws English Dictionary

Boca Raton

Boca Raton proper noun: a city in Palm Beach County, Florida, United States.

Proper noun

Boca Raton

  1. A city in Palm Beach County, Florida, United States.
    • Three people who were onboard the twin-engine Cessna 310 when it crashed were killed, according to Michael LaSalle, assistant fire chief with Boca Raton Fire Rescue.2025 April 11, Aaron Cooper and Rebekah Riess, “3 people killed after small plane crashes on busy Boca Raton street”, in CNN, archived from the original on 26 Jul 2025
  2. A lagoon in Palm Beach County, Florida, United States; in full, Lake Boca Raton.
    Synonyms:
    Boca Ratone Lagoon, Boca Ratone Sound, Boca Ratone Sounde

Synonyms of Boca Raton

  • Boca Ratone Lagoon
  • Boca Ratone Sound
  • Boca Ratone Sounde
  • Bocaratone

Origin of Boca Raton

From Bocaratone, from Boca Ratone Lagoon, from Spanish Boca de Ratones, from boca + ratone. Though named after Boca de Ratones, that region is actually in Biscayne Bay in Miami-Dade County, Florida, USA; not Palm Beach County. Later English cartographers replaced the Spanish location at Rio Seco (“Dry River”) with Boca Ratone Sounde, where a lagoon was located, now called Lake Boca Raton. The original Boca de Ratones on Biscayne Bay, was an inlet (“boca”) with a rocky bottom, that would grind (“ratonar”) mooring lines. The city of Boca Raton has a folk etymology, relating the name as "Rat's Mouth", where ratón (“mouse”) is mistaken for rata (“rat”), and boca is "mouth". This pertains to the local belief that the area hosted a pirate's lair (rats' lair), leading the city to have a pirate ship on the city seal (“coat of arms”).

Questions about Boca Raton

What does Boca Raton mean?
Boca Raton means a city in Palm Beach County, Florida, United States.
What part of speech is Boca Raton?
Boca Raton is a proper noun.

Words near Boca Raton in the dictionary

  1. bobèches
  2. BOC
  3. Boca
  4. Boca Chica
  5. Boca Engaño
  6. Boca Raton
  7. bocaccio
  8. bocaccios
  9. bocachica
  10. bocachicas
  11. bocachico

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: Boca Raton (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.

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