Hello, you have come here looking for the meaning of the word England. In DICTIOUS you will not only get to know all the dictionary meanings for the word England, but we will also tell you about its etymology, its characteristics and you will know how to say England in singular and plural. Everything you need to know about the word England you have here. The definition of the word England will help you to be more precise and correct when speaking or writing your texts. Knowing the definition ofEngland, as well as those of other words, enriches your vocabulary and provides you with more and better linguistic resources.
Gaunt ...This royall throne of Kings, this sceptredIle, This earth of maiesty, this seate of Mars, This other Eden, demyParadice, This fortresse built by Nature for her selfe, Against infection and the hand of warre, This happy breede of men, this little world, This precious stone set in the siluer sea, Which serues it in the office of a wall, Or as moatedefensiue to a house, Against the enuie of lesse happier lands. This blessed plot, this earth, this realme, this England... Is now leasde out... That England that was wont to conquer others, Hath made a shamefull conquest of it selfe...
And did those feet in ancient time Walk upon England’s mountains green? And was the holy Lamb of God On England’s pleasant pastures seen?... I will not cease from Mental Fight, Nor shall my Sword sleep in my hand, Till we have built Jerusalem In England’s green & pleasant Land.
1864, Victor Hugo, chapter 6, in Amédée Baillot, transl., William Shakespeare:
What is England? She is Elizabeth... To live alone, to go alone, to reign alone, to be alone,—such is Elizabeth, such is England... England has two books: one which she has made, the other which has made her,—Shakespeare and the Bible. These two books do not agree together... Shakespeare thinks, Shakespeare dreams, Shakespeare doubts... Moreover, Shakespeare invents.
England is not the jewelled isle of Shakespeare's much-quoted passage, nor is it the inferno depicted by Dr Goebbels. More than either it resembles a family, a rather stuffy Victorian family, with not many black sheep but with all its cupboards bursting with skeletons. It has rich relations who have to be kow-towed to and poor relations who are horribly sat upon, and there is a deep conspiracy of silence about the source of the family income.
England is like some stricken beast too stupid to know it is dead. Ingloriously foundering in its own waste products, the backlash and bad karma of empire.
"This is England," he explained. "Tell someone it's a procedure, and they'll believe you. The pointless procedure is one of our great natural resources."
Had they responded this way in France or America, this wouldn't have surprised me, but wasn't everyone in England supposed to be a detective? Wasn't every crime, no matter how complex, solved in a timely fashion by either a professional or a hobbyist? That's the impression you get from British books and TV shows.
As England has always constituted the most populous and important of the kingdoms comprising the United Kingdom, it has historically been used metonymously for the UK as a whole in English and (in translation) other languages as well. This usage is now considered uninformed or insulting, particularly to subjects of the other parts of the UK. The 1746 Wales & Berwick Act formalized the previous informal understanding that laws referencing the Kingdom of England alone also applied to the Principality of Wales; this continued to be the case until the 1967 Welsh Language Act required that any similarly general laws afterwards must specify England and Wales separately.
In formal usage, England referring to Great Britain or the United Kingdom is now very rare.
In common speech, England continues to be the most common word for the two respective entities as a whole. It is, however, now uncommon to use England when referring specifically to a place or incident in Scotland, Wales, or Northern Ireland. In such a case, the respective word would normally be used (Schottland, Wales, Nordirland).
The usage including the Republic of Ireland, which is sometimes heard, is conspicuously nonstandard.
Which armes I the seid Clarensewe King of Armes conferme unto the seid John and wtnesse here that nos ꝑsone wtin the Raume of England ought for to bere hem but the seid John and the heirs of his body lawfully begaten. In wtnesse wherof to thise ꝉres I have sette my seall of armes and my signe manuell.
References
^ Willoughby Aston Littledale, editor (1925), A Collection of Miscellaneous Grants, Crests, Confirmations, Augmentations and Exemplifications of Arms in the Mss. Preserved in the British Museum, Ashmolean Library, Queen's College, Oxford, and Elsewhere, volume 76, London: J. Whitehead and Son, Ltd., →OCLC, pages 2–3