Meanings
- alternativepluralplural onlyAlternative form of Strait of Magellan.
As the Panama Canal was still not ready, the fleet had to pass across the tip of South America through the Straits of Magellan.
2018 December 16, Andrew Glass, “Roosevelt dispatches U.S. fleet on goodwill voyage, Dec. 16, 1907”, in Politico, archived from the original on 16 Dec 20183 more examples
Under our new World may alſo be compriſed thoſe vaſt Southern Coaſts and Streights of Magelan, firſt lighted on by Ferdinandus Magelanus in the year 1520, in his Circumnavigation of the Univerſe ; which forty five years after Sir Francis Drake, and next Sir Thomas Bendiſh, Engliſhmen, made a furhter inſpection into ; and in the Year 1600 Oliver van Noord a Hollander paſt, but of later years a Spaniard, Fedinand de Quier, out-ſhot them all by a more ample Diſcovery then all the former.
1669, John Nievhoff, translated by John Ogilby, An Embassy from the Eaſt-India Company of the United Provinces, to the Grand Tartar Cham Emperour of China, London: John Macock, →OCLC, pages 3–4Well, as if that wern't enough, we ship together again in this vessel, and a time we had of it with the French letter-of-marque. After that, a devil of a passage we made of it through the Straits of Magellan.
1844, James Fenimore Cooper, Afloat and Ashore, page 257The plains near the Straits of Magellan are inhabited by one species of Rhea (American ostrich), and northward the plains of La Plata by another species of the same genus; and not by a true ostrich or emeu, like those found in Africa and Australia under the same latitude.
1859 November 24, Charles Darwin, “Geographical Distribution”, in On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, […], London: John Murray, […], →OCLC, page 349
Cite this entry
Straits of Magellan. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 5, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/Straits%20of%20Magellan
“Straits of Magellan.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/Straits%20of%20Magellan. Accessed November 5, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “Straits of Magellan,” accessed November 5, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/Straits%20of%20Magellan.
Source: Straits of Magellan on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.