Guam

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A United States territory consisting of a large island in the western Pacific Ocean, east of the Philippines and north of Micronesia
2. An island in the western Pacific that is an unincorporated American territory with its capital at Hagåtña
3. The largest and southernmost island of the Mariana Islands, governed by the United States as an organized territory

Etymology: Guam is the largest island in Micronesia, and its name came to English through Spanish, which took it from the language of the island's own people. The Chamorro form "Guåhan" is generally glossed as "a place that has" or "a place of resources," a phrase that points to the island's wealth of food, water and land rather than to any single feature. Spanish speakers adopted it as "Guam" when the island came under their control, and English took the spelling over from there. The word is a useful reminder that place names often record what early outsiders heard or wrote down. The Spanish version dropped the Chamorro accent mark and reshaped the sounds to fit Spanish spelling, so the name English speakers use is already a second-hand rendering of the original.