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Pom·er·a·ni·a

(pŏm′ə-rānē-ə, -rānyə)

A historical region of north-central Europe bordering on the Baltic Sea in present-day northwest Poland and northeast Germany. It was inhabited by Slavic tribes in the 10th century and conquered by Poland in the 12th century. The territory was later split up and controlled by various powers, including the Holy Roman Empire, Prussia, Sweden, Denmark, and Germany.

Word History: Pomerania was a district of Prussia extending along the Baltic from Stralsund in eastern Germany to the Vistula in Poland. The adjective Pomeranian first occurs in English around 1760, referring to the toy dog, originally a sled dog in Lapland and later a shepherd dog in Germany. Pomerania is the medieval Latin form of German Pommern, itself a loanword in German from Slavic. The Polish word for Pomerania is Pomorze, composed of the preposition po, "along, by," and morze, "sea." The earlier Slavic word for sea, more, which becomes morze in Polish, comes from the Indo-European noun *mori-, "sea," the source of Latin mare, "sea," and the mer- of English mermaid.

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.

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