Palau
Language: English
Part of speech: name
Pronunciation: ipa: /pəˈlaʊ/
rhymes: -aʊ
Etymology: Borrowed from Palauan Belau (“Palau”), traditionally derived from aidebelau (“indirect replies”) in reference to the island's creation story, or from beluu (“village”), from Proto-Malayo-Polynesian *banua (“inhabited land, territory”).
Senses: examples: text: Another society in which wealth per se was highly valued was Palau, but wealth belonging to descent units and not to individuals.[…]
Palau society was divided into a large number of individually named, exogamous matriclans, and these were in turn subdivided into named matrilineages, each of which was a land-owning corporation and localized within a single community.
ref: 1989, Douglas L. Oliver, “Social Relations”, in Native Cultures of the Pacific Islands, Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, →ISBN, →LCCN, →OCLC, page 146:
text: The president of Palau declared Tuesday that his Pacific island nation will ban commercial fishing and become a marine sanctuary.[…]
Remengesau said establishing “a 100 percent marine sanctuary” will enable Palau to preserve “a pristine environment” and promote snorkeling, scuba diving and ecotourism as an alternative way to grow its economy.
ref: 2014 February 5, Edith M. Lederer, “Palau to ban commercial fishing, promote tourism”, in AP News, archived from the original on 19 Jul 2023:
text: Few places on the planet are as isolated as Palau, or as sprawling. Its 21,000 residents are scattered across a handful of its 250 islands, which take up just 177 square miles combined. Relatively poor, and with no military of its own, Palau employs a marine police division with just 18 members and one patrol ship.
ref: 2016 February 17, Ian Urbina, “Palau vs. the Poachers”, in The New York Times, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 17 Feb 2016:
text: Fully 99% of Palau's population over 12 has had both shots of vaccine for the new coronavirus, the International Federation of Red Cross (IFRC) said, citing government figures which also show that this amounts to 16,152 people.
That puts Palau, an archipelago of 500 islands in the western Pacific Ocean, in the "top spot", the IFRC said in a statement, ahead of countries like Portugal which was named one of the world's most vaccinated countries when 80% of its 10 million people were fully immunized last month.
ref: 2021 October 14, Byron Kaye, “Tiny Pacific nation beats the world with 99% COVID vaccination, says Red Cross”, in Raju Gopalakrishnan, editor, Reuters, archived from the original on 14 Oct 2021, Asia Pacific:
text: While in Palau, Lai delivered a speech at its legislature and plans to open a government building complex that Taiwan helped to build. On Friday, Taiwan and Palau are set to conduct a joint maritime rescue drill, with Taiwan’s coast guard sending one of its newest domestically-made vessels from its southern port of Kaohsiung, in a possible rehearsal for showdowns with Chinese coast guard vessels in disputed regional waters.
ref: 2024 December 5, Joyu Wang, Austin Ramzy, “Beijing Has Picked Off Taiwan’s Remaining Allies. Taiwan Is Fighting Back.”, in The Wall Street Journal, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 06 Dec 2024:
synonyms: mul:PW
mul:PLW
glosses: A country consisting of around 340 islands in Micronesia, in Oceania. Official name: Republic of Palau. Capital: Ngerulmud.
Derived terms: Palauan
Related terms: Ngerulmud
Countries of the world