Word.ws English Dictionary

Melanesia

Syllables: Mel·a·ne·sia/ˌmɛl.əˈniː.zi.ə/US/ˌmɛl.əˈni.ʒə/

Melanesia proper noun: a continental region of Oceania, consisting of New Guinea, the Bismarck Archipelago, the Solomon Islands, New Caledonia, Vanuatu and Fiji.

Proper noun

Melanesia

  1. A continental region of Oceania, consisting of New Guinea, the Bismarck Archipelago, the Solomon Islands, New Caledonia, Vanuatu and Fiji.
    • My job, then, is that of a cultural and religious broker of sorts, co-opting Melanesia to serve as a stimulus to thought in Le Moyne classrooms.2004, Mary N. MacDonald, “Thinking and teaching with the indigenous traditions of Melanesia”, in Beyond primitivism: indigenous religious traditions and modernity, Routledge, →ISBN, page 315

Melanesia meaning in Hindi, Urdu, Tagalog and Arabic

Melanesia in Hindi

part of Oceania
मॅलानिशिया mĕlāniśiyā

Melanesia in Urdu

part of Oceania
میلانیشیا melāniśiyā

Melanesia in Tagalog

part of Oceania
Timpuluan, Melanesya

Melanesia in Arabic

part of Oceania
مِيلَانِيزِيَا mīlānīziyā
More languagesFewer languages
Melanesia in Malay
Melanesia
Melanesia in Indonesian
Melenasia
Melanesia in Persian
ملانزی melânezi
Melanesia in Thai
เมลานีเซีย mee-laa-nii-siia
Melanesia in Vietnamese
Mê-la-nê-di
Melanesia in Myanmar
မီလန်နီးရှား milanni:hra:

Origin of Melanesia

From French Mélanésie (coined by Jules Dumont d'Urville), from Ancient Greek μέλας (mélas, “dark”) + νῆσος (nêsos, “island”), referring to the skin color of the inhabitants.

Words formed from Melanesia

Questions about Melanesia

What does Melanesia mean?
Melanesia means a continental region of Oceania, consisting of New Guinea, the Bismarck Archipelago, the Solomon Islands, New Caledonia, Vanuatu and Fiji.
What is Melanesia in Hindi?
Melanesia in Hindi is मॅलानिशिया (mĕlāniśiyā). See Melanesia meaning in Hindi.
What part of speech is Melanesia?
Melanesia is a proper noun.
How do you pronounce Melanesia?
Melanesia is pronounced /ˌmɛl.əˈniː.zi.ə/ (UK).

Words near Melanesia in the dictionary

  1. melandryids
  2. melanemia
  3. melanemic
  4. melanephelinite
  5. melanephelinites
  6. Melanesia
  7. Melanesian
  8. Melanesian Pidgin English
  9. Melanesianist
  10. Melanesianists
  11. Melanesians

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: Melanesia (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-Melanesia.wav.

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