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The Collaborative International Dictionary
West Indian

West India \West` In"di*a\, West Indian \West` In"di*an\ Belonging or relating to the West Indies.

West India tea (Bot.), a shrubby plant ( Capraria biflora) having oblanceolate toothed leaves which are sometimes used in the West Indies as a substitute for tea.

West Indian

West Indian \West` In"di*an\ A native of, or a dweller in, the West Indies.

Wikipedia
West Indian

A West Indian is a native or inhabitant of the West Indies (the Antilles and the Lucayan Archipelago). For more than 100 years the words West Indian specifically described natives of the West Indies, but by 1661 Europeans had begun to use it also to describe the descendants of European colonists who stayed in the West Indies. Some West Indian people reserve this term for citizens or natives of the British West Indies.

Usage examples of "west indian".

He was surprised to see Shama filling a satchel with a slate, a slate pencil, a lead pencil, an eraser, an exercise book with the Union Jack on the cover, and _Nelson's West Indian Reader_, First Stage, by Captain J.

I salute him, and he responds properly, then says 'Combustible Jones', sticking out a hand big as a West Indian fast bowler's.

Now he suddenly realised that the almost legendary career of the great Lord Hornblower might have been terminated then and there, that his future biographer might have had to deplore the ironic chance which, after so many pitched battles, brought him death at the hands of an obscure criminal in an unknown corner of a West Indian island.

She had been built and rigged small and handy, to work in and out of obscure inlets, doing the police work of the West Indian archipelago.

Hough was a substantial planter, a man of considerable wealth, with enough of dislike for English winters not to be the usual West Indian absentee landlord.

His good-humoured face had been blackened by the West Indian sun, and his arms were covered with tattooing.

Considering that the breadfruit might provide a cheap and wholesome food for their negro slaves, several of the West India merchants and planters petitioned the Crown, asking that a vessel be fitted out suitably to convey the breadfruit from Tahiti to the West Indian islands.

Although the comte dEstaing had suffered a devastating defeat in his attempt to retake the West Indian island of Saint Lucia from the British in December 1778, he had captured the British islands of Saint Vincents and Grenada the following July and in August (after receiving an urgent message from the Americans when he docked at Santo Domingo) had made for the Georgia coast.

He was as mercurial as the weather of that tropical West Indian island from which he came.