Word.ws English Dictionary

Laurentia

Syllables: Lau·ren·tiaUS/lɑˈɹɛn.ʃə/

More pronunciations (1)Fewer pronunciations

pin pen merger/lɑˈɹɪn.ʃə/

Laurentia proper noun: the craton that forms the geological core of North America, and that was a separate continent in the past (before merging into Laurasia).

Proper noun

Laurentia

  1. The craton that forms the geological core of North America, and that was a separate continent in the past (before merging into Laurasia).
    • Laurentia includes most of North America, Scotland and Ireland north of the Caledonian suture, Greenland, Spitzbergen, and the Chukotsk peninsula of eastern Siberia.2015, Kent C. Condie, Plate Tectonics & Crustal Evolution
  2. (nonstandard) Canada.

Origin of Laurentia

A New Latin formation named after the Saint Lawrence River: Laurentius (“Lawrence”) + -ia (New Latin suffix for creating place names). Or, back-formed from Laurentian (from French laurentien), already in use to describe the Laurentian Mountains and their associated geologic complex (and by extension Canada as a whole).

Words formed from Laurentia

Questions about Laurentia

What does Laurentia mean?
Laurentia means the craton that forms the geological core of North America, and that was a separate continent in the past (before merging into Laurasia).
What part of speech is Laurentia?
Laurentia is a proper noun.
How do you pronounce Laurentia?
Laurentia is pronounced /lɑˈɹɛn.ʃə/ (US).

Words near Laurentia in the dictionary

  1. Laurent
  2. Laurent polynomial
  3. Laurent polynomials
  4. Laurent series
  5. Laurent's acid
  6. Laurentia
  7. Laurentian
  8. Laurentian chair
  9. Laurentian chairs
  10. Laurentian Divide
  11. Laurentian Hills

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: Laurentia (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-Laurentia.wav.

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