Meanings
- An unincorporated community and former town in Cape Breton Regional Municipality, Nova Scotia, Canada.
1 more example
The ships would leave Europe in April, when there was a good easterly wind. Trans-Atlantic mariners wanted the wind dead on the stern, so they could run with it, sticking to the same latitude—a method called easting and westing. Columbus, Cabot, and many others had done this. […] If a ship left the harbor at La Rochelle, dropping below the two islands that protect that harbor, and then stuck to its latitude, it would make landfall at Cape Breton, where the French station of Louisbourg was established so that La Rochelle ships could easily find it.
1997, Mark Kurlansky, “Chapter 4: 1620: The Rock and the Cod”, in Cod: A Biography of the Fish that Changed the World, Walker, →ISBN
Origin
- FrenchLouisbourg
- EnglishLouisbourg
Borrowed from French Louisbourg, named after Louis XIV of France.
More words from French
Full word history & related roots →Cite this entry
Louisbourg. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 3, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/Louisbourg
“Louisbourg.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/Louisbourg. Accessed November 3, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “Louisbourg,” accessed November 3, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/Louisbourg.
Source: Louisbourg on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.