Columbus

South American nation, independent from 1819 as part of Gran Colombia (after its breakup in 1830, known as New Granada, then Colombia from 1863); named for Italian explorer Christopher Columbus (Italian Colombo, Portuguese Colom, Spanish Colón). Related: Colombian.

poetic name for United States of America, earlier for the British colonies there, 1730s, also the nation's female personification, from name of Christopher Columbus (also see Colombia) with Latin "country" ending -ia.

A popular name for places and institutions in the U.S. in the post-Revolutionary years, when former tributes to king and crown were out of fashion: such as Columbia University (New York, U.S.) founded in 1754 as King's College; re-named 1784. Also District of Columbia (1791, as Territory of Columbia); "Hail, Columbia," Joseph Hopkinson's patriotic song that served in 19c. as an unofficial national anthem (1798); "Columbiad," Joel Barlow's attempt to write an epic for the United States (1807). Columbiad also was the name of a heavy, cast-iron, smooth-bore cannon introduced in the U.S. in 1811. Related: Columbian.

also precolumbian, "occurring or existing before the European discovery of the Americas by Christopher Columbus," see pre- + Columbus.