Carmarthenshire

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A county in the southwest of Wales, bordering Ceredigion, Pembrokeshire and Powys, with Carmarthen as its administrative centre
2. An administrative area of southwestern Wales on the coast of Carmarthen Bay, governed from the town of Carmarthen
3. A Welsh county lying in the southwest of the country, known for its rural landscape and historic market town of Carmarthen

Etymology: Carmarthenshire is a county in south-west Wales, and its name is simply the town of Carmarthen with the English suffix "-shire" attached. "Shire" comes from Old English "scir", meaning a share or division, and it became the standard English term for a county, as in Yorkshire or Hampshire. So the name works just like those English county names: it marks the district that takes its identity from a central town. The town itself carries the older layer. Carmarthen is a Welsh name, "Caerfyrddin", which is usually explained as meaning "fort of Moridunum", a Romano-British name for the place. That Latin-sounding ancestor is why a Welsh town name ends up inside an English county name, with the English suffix grafted onto a Welsh base.