Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • A city of northeast Sicily, Italy, on the Strait of Messina, a channel separating Sicily from mainland Italy. Founded in the eighth century BC by Greek colonists, Messina was decimated by the plague in 1743 and suffered severe earthquakes in 1783 and 1908. The strait's rocks, currents, and whirlpools may have been the inspiration for the legend of Scylla and Charybdis.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • proper noun Province of Sicily, Italy.
  • proper noun Town and capital of Messina.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun a port city in northeastern Sicily on the Strait of Messina

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Italian Messina.

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