The Collaborative International Dictionary
New Zealand \New` Zea"land\ A group of islands in the South Pacific Ocean. New Zealand flax.
(Bot.) A tall, liliaceous herb ( Phormium tenax), having very long, sword-shaped, distichous leaves which furnish a fine, strong fiber very valuable for cordage and the like.
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The fiber itself.
New Zealand tea (Bot.), a myrtaceous shrub ( Leptospermum scoparium) of New Zealand and Australia, the leaves of which are used as a substitute for tea.
Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
from Dutch Nieuw Zeeland, literally "new sea land," but chiefly a reference to the Dutch province of Zeeland. Discovered 1647 by Dutch explorer Abel Tasman and originally named Staaten Landt; the name was changed the following year by Dutch authorities.
Wikipedia
New Zealand is a country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean.
New Zealand may also refer to:
New Zealand is an island nation in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. The country geographically comprises two main landmasses – that of the North Island, or Te Ika-a-Māui, and the South Island, or Te Waipounamu – and numerous smaller islands. New Zealand is situated some east of Australia across the Tasman Sea and roughly south of the Pacific island areas of New Caledonia, Fiji, and Tonga. Because of its remoteness, it was one of the last lands to be settled by humans. During its long period of isolation, New Zealand developed a distinctive biodiversity of animal, fungal and plant life. The country's varied topography and its sharp mountain peaks, such as the Southern Alps, owe much to the tectonic uplift of land and volcanic eruptions. New Zealand's capital city is Wellington, while its most populous city is Auckland.
Sometime between 1250 and 1300 CE, Polynesians settled in the islands that would later become New Zealand, and developed a distinctive Māori culture. In 1642, Abel Tasman, a Dutch explorer, became the first European to sight New Zealand. In 1840, representatives of the British Crown and Māori Chiefs signed the Treaty of Waitangi, making New Zealand a British colony. Today, the majority of New Zealand's population of 4.7 million is of European descent; the indigenous Māori are the largest minority, followed by Asians and Pacific Islanders. Reflecting this, New Zealand's culture is mainly derived from Māori and early British settlers, with recent broadening arising from increased immigration. The official languages are English, Māori and New Zealand Sign Language, with English predominant.
New Zealand is a developed country with a market economy. New Zealand is a World Bank high-income economy and ranks highly in international comparisons of national performance, such as health, education, economic freedom and quality of life. Nationally, legislative authority is vested in an elected, unicameral Parliament, while executive political power is exercised by the Cabinet, led by the Prime Minister, who is currently John Key. Queen Elizabeth II is the country's head of state and is represented by a Governor-General. In addition, New Zealand is organised into 11 regional councils and 67 territorial authorities for local government purposes. The Realm of New Zealand also includes Tokelau (a dependent territory); the Cook Islands and Niue (self-governing states in free association with New Zealand); and the Ross Dependency, which is New Zealand's territorial claim in Antarctica. New Zealand is a member of the United Nations, Commonwealth of Nations, ANZUS, Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, Pacific Islands Forum, and Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation.
Usage examples of "new zealand".
But what can I do but draw upon the fullest descriptive power I can command, and mark that English now is no more the language of one land, or even two or three or four, but has become the language of all the modern world from the backwoods of Tennessee to the most remote Celtic isles and down under to the teeming cities of Australia and New Zealand.
Overhead, lacy fronds clogged the still-dim sky, the prehistoric tendrils of a stand of magnificent tree ferns that any park in New Zealand would have been proud of.
His name was well known to the English soldiers, and a price had been set on his head by the governor of New Zealand.
He was in the Western Desert with the New Zealand Division and I didn't see him to recognize until he came back in 1943 when I was four years old.
For example, after the ancestors of the Maori reached New Zealand, it apparently took them barely a century to discover all worthwhile stone sources.
I had heard the term `track and bowl system' bandied about by New Zealand zoologists before, and they had bandied it about so casually that I hadn't immediately liked to say that I hadn't the faintest idea what they were talking about.
If all the world broke fast the way New Zealand does, we wouldn't have political unrest.
He consulted his charts and determined their only hope was to take advantage of the adverse current and winds and sail east toward New Zealand.