Definitions

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

  • noun A part of a country that is isolated from the main part and is surrounded by foreign territory.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun A part of a country, province, or the like which is disjoined from the main part.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun Recent. A portion of a country which is separated from the main part and surrounded by politically alien territory.

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

  • noun A portion of a country's territory not connected to the main part
  • noun medicine, rare A detached part of an organ, as of the pancreas, thyroid, or other gland.

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[ex– + (en)clave.]

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Examples

Comments

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  • From OED: "A portion of territory separated from the country to which it politically belongs and entirely surrounded by alien dominions: seen from the viewpoint of the 'home' country (as opp. to an enclave, the same portion of territory as viewed by the surrounding dominions)."

    October 8, 2008

  • This word aptly describes the status of Oecussi vis-a-vis East Timor. I've generally heard it referred to as an enclave even by people who should know better. The distinction and its facility of switching points of view strikes me as being quite useful.

    October 9, 2008

  • Alaska is an exclave.

    October 9, 2008

  • It’s either foolhardy or brave

    To capture the sense of enclave

    While leaving in place

    The lexical space

    To service its shadow, exclave.

    See https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enclave_and_exclave

    May 27, 2018