Vespucius

Part of speech: proper noun

Definitions

1. The name of a Renaissance Italian explorer and navigator credited with demonstrating that the New World was not Asia but a previously unknown continent; also refers to geographic features and locations named in his honor
2. Refers to a historical figure known for voyages that led to the recognition of the American continents as distinct from Asia; the surname used to denote places or entities commemorating this explorer
3. A surname identifying the Florentine-born maritime explorer whose voyages contributed to the understanding of the Western Hemisphere's geography; also used to designate various landmarks and institutions named after him

Etymology: Amerigo Vespucci was a Florentine merchant and navigator whose letters describing voyages to the New World were printed in Latin. The German cartographer Martin Waldseemüller, reading those accounts, proposed in his world map that the new lands be named after Vespucci. He used the Latinized form "Americus," and the name stuck to the continents. "Vespucius" is the Latin-style form of the Italian surname Vespucci, the kind of rendering common in the scholarly Latin of the period. It survives mainly in references to Vespucci himself and in names that commemorate him.