Latin name of a region roughly corresponding to modern Portugal and part of Spain; in modern use, allusive or poetic for "Portugal." The Cunard ocean liner (sister ship of the Mauretania and Aquitania, also named after Roman Atlantic coastal provinces) was launched in 1906, torpedoed and sunk by German submarine U-20 on May 7, 1915. Related: Lusitanian.
Entries linking to lusitania
Ruritanian adj.
"utopian," 1896, from Ruritania, name of an imaginary kingdom in "The Prisoner of Zenda" (1894) by Anthony Hope (1863-1933), who coined it from Latin rus (genitive ruris) "country" (see rural) + Latinate ending -itania (as in Lusitania, Mauritania). Ruritania as a recognizable generic name for an imaginary country lasted into the 1970s.