Selma

plural Selmas

1. countableA female given name.
2. countableA surname.
3. A placename
   1. countableuncountableA community in Nova Scotia, Canada.
   2. countableuncountableA village in Graubünden canton, Switzerland.
   3. countableuncountableA city, the county seat of Dallas County, Alabama; named for James Macpherson's Ossianic poem The Songs of Selma.

      So when King – who had been in Atlanta for “Bloody Sunday” – telegrammed Parks about returning to Alabama to take part in a third mass march from Selma to Montgomery, her immediate answer was “Why, of course.”

      2015 March 5, Douglas Brinkley, “Selma’s historic bridge deserves a better name”, in CNN, archived from the original on 26 Apr 2015

   4. countableuncountableA city in Fresno County, California; named for early resident Selma Michelson.
   5. countableuncountableA city in Texas.
   6. countableuncountableA town in North Carolina; named for the city in Alabama.
   7. countableuncountableA town in Indiana.
   8. countableuncountableA census-designated place in Josephine County, Oregon.
   9. countableuncountableA census-designated place in Virginia.
   10. countableuncountableAn unincorporated community in Arkansas.
   11. countableuncountableAn unincorporated community in Iowa.
   12. countableuncountableAn unincorporated community in Kansas.
   13. countableuncountableAn unincorporated community in Missouri; named for the place in the Ossian cycle.
   14. countableuncountableAn unincorporated community in Ohio.

plural Selmas

1. USfigurativelygovernmentA confrontation where authorities brutally repress those wanting civil rights, similar to Bloody Sunday in Selma, Alabama.

   Shelby County has become the new Selma.

   2015, Minnie Bruce Pratt, Workers World, "Black and Brown unity in Alabama", 24 June 2015

   3 more examples

   Eventually, our place and response may be viewed as a historic turning point, another Selma for the nation and world.

   2020, Dane Smith, Star Tribune (Minneapolis), "Toward a better patriotism", 3 July 2020

   "I don't know how many Selmas you have in your memory," she said. "I have a lot in mine."

   1986, Daily Sitka Sentinel, Sitka Weekend, p.11, Friday 17 January 1986

   How Many Selmas? Still another city in the south Is learning the hard way that the Negro will settle for nothing less than first class citizenship.

   1965, The Fresno Bee, p.60, Wednesday 21 July 1965