palau
/pəˈlaʊ/
Word Rarity
Rare
Frequency: Zipf frequency 2.68 in modern English
7
Scrabble Score
5
Letters
2
Syllables
4
Unique Chars
Meaning
name
A country consisting of around 340 islands in Micronesia, in Oceania. Official name: Republic of Palau. Capital: Ngerulmud.
Example Sentences
- "Another society in which wealth per se was highly valued was Palau, but wealth belonging to descent units and not to individuals.[…] Palau society was divided into a large number of individually named, exogamous matriclans, and these were in turn subdivided into named matrilineages, each of which was a land-owning corporation and localized within a single community."
- "The president of Palau declared Tuesday that his Pacific island nation will ban commercial fishing and become a marine sanctuary.[…] Remengesau said establishing “a 100 percent marine sanctuary” will enable Palau to preserve “a pristine environment” and promote snorkeling, scuba diving and ecotourism as an alternative way to grow its economy."
- "Few places on the planet are as isolated as Palau, or as sprawling. Its 21,000 residents are scattered across a handful of its 250 islands, which take up just 177 square miles combined. Relatively poor, and with no military of its own, Palau employs a marine police division with just 18 members and one patrol ship."
- "Fully 99% of Palau's population over 12 has had both shots of vaccine for the new coronavirus, the International Federation of Red Cross (IFRC) said, citing government figures which also show that this amounts to 16,152 people. That puts Palau, an archipelago of 500 islands in the western Pacific Ocean, in the "top spot", the IFRC said in a statement, ahead of countries like Portugal which was named one of the world's most vaccinated countries when 80% of its 10 million people were fully immunized last month."
- "While in Palau, Lai delivered a speech at its legislature and plans to open a government building complex that Taiwan helped to build. On Friday, Taiwan and Palau are set to conduct a joint maritime rescue drill, with Taiwan’s coast guard sending one of its newest domestically-made vessels from its southern port of Kaohsiung, in a possible rehearsal for showdowns with Chinese coast guard vessels in disputed regional waters."
Etymology
Borrowed from Palauan Belau (“Palau”), traditionally derived from aidebelau (“indirect replies”) in reference to the island's creation story, or from beluu (“village”), from Proto-Malayo-Polynesian *banua (“inhabited land, territory”).
Word Breakdown
- Root: *banua
Regional Pronunciation
- American English: /pəˈlaʊ/
- British English: /pəˈlaʊ/
Usage
Inflected Forms
Derived Forms
Phrases
Countries of the world
Frequently Paired Words
Ngerulmud
Countries of the world
Synonyms
mul:PW
mul:PLW