canton

Reading level: hard

Estimated CEFR level: C1 — Advanced

Estimated from word frequency; not an official CEFR classification.

Definition

noun a city on the Zhu Jiang delta in southern China; the capital of Guangdong province and a major deep-water port
noun a small administrative division of a country
verb provide housing for (military personnel)

1530s, from Middle French canton, from Old French canton (“corner”); heraldic sense from the 1570s, geographic sense from c. 1600.

Cottonwood Prairie (now Canton): 188. — Old Times on the Upper Mississippi: The Recollections of a Steamboat Pilot from 1854 to 1863, George Byron Merrick
I was made of white canton flannel. — Fairy Prince and Other Stories, Eleanor Hallowell Abbott
They were to remain three days in Canton. — Four Young Explorers; Or, Sight-Seeing in the Tropics, Oliver Optic

Guangzhou, Kuangchou, Kwangchow

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