Groningen

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A university and market city in the far north of the Netherlands ; a province in the northeast of the country that takes its name from that city
2. A historic city in the northern Netherlands known for its university ; the northern Dutch province whose capital is that same city
3. An old Dutch city in the north of the Netherlands with a large student population ; the surrounding province in the far north of the country

Etymology: The name "Groningen" belongs to a place, not a word that was coined in English, so its story is really the story of a city. The city sits in the far north of the Netherlands, and its name is Dutch, which is why English borrowed it unchanged rather than translating or adapting it. The surrounding province shares the same name, and English uses the word for both the city and the region. Because it is a proper noun, the word carries no dictionary sense of its own beyond pointing to that place. Its spelling and pronunciation have stayed close to the Dutch form, so an English speaker encountering it is seeing a foreign place name kept in its native shape.