Powys

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A administrative county in central Wales, bordering England, known for its rural landscape ; an early medieval kingdom of the Welsh that existed in what is now mid-Wales
2. A local government area in the heart of Wales with mountains and farmland ; a historical Welsh realm that flourished in the early medieval period across the same region
3. The name of a large rural county in mid-Wales ; the name of a former native kingdom of the Welsh that ruled the region in the Middle Ages

Etymology: Powys is a Welsh county and historical kingdom, and its name is a borrowing from Welsh, where it descends from Latin "pagēnsis," meaning "provincial" or "of the countryside." The Latin root is the same one behind Italian "paese" and French "pays," both of which mean "country" or "land," so the Welsh name for this region is a close relative of the everyday words for a nation or homeland in several European languages. The Latin word "pagensis" came from "pagus," a rural district or village area, which is also the source of "pagan" and "peasant" through separate routes. In other words, a term meaning "from the outlying country" became the name of a place, and the same idea of countryside underlies a family of words across French, Italian and English.