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Cy·prus (sīprəs)
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An island country in the eastern Mediterranean Sea south of Turkey. Site of an ancient Neolithic culture, the island was settled by Phoenicians c. 800 BC and thereafter fell successively to the Assyrians, Egyptians, Persians, Macedonian Greeks, and finally Romans (58 BC). The Byzantines controlled it from AD 395 until 1191, when it was captured by Richard I of England during the Third Crusade. Venice annexed it in 1489, Turkey conquered it in 1571, and Great Britain annexed it in 1914. Cyprus became independent in 1960, but large-scale fighting between Greek and Turkish Cypriots led to the installment of a UN peacekeeping force in 1964. In 1974 Turkey invaded Cyprus and established a de facto independent Turkish state in the northern part of the island. Nicosia is the capital of Cyprus and the largest city.
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Cyprus

The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition copyright ©2022 by HarperCollins Publishers. All rights reserved.
 

Indo-European & Semitic Roots Appendices

    Thousands of entries in the dictionary include etymologies that trace their origins back to reconstructed proto-languages. You can obtain more information about these forms in our online appendices:

    Indo-European Roots

    Semitic Roots

    The Indo-European appendix covers nearly half of the Indo-European roots that have left their mark on English words. A more complete treatment of Indo-European roots and the English words derived from them is available in our Dictionary of Indo-European Roots.