Territory Meaning
/ˈtɛɹɪˌtɔɹi/Definition, CEFR level B2, pronunciation, examples, and quiz.
Listen pronunciation
Definition
nounA large extent or tract of land; for example a region, country or district.
nounOne of three of Canada's federal entities, located in the country's Arctic, with fewer powers than a province and created by an act of Parliament rather than by the Constitution: Yukon, Northwest Territories, and Nunavut.
Sentence Examples
You're stepping into dangerous territory.
Angola was once a Portuguese territory.
The armed forces succeeded in occupying the entire territory.
CEFR Practice Quiz
The wolf marked its ____ by leaving scent marks on trees around the forest.
CEFR Practice Quiz (Alternate)
The explorers were traveling through unknown ____ and they had to be very careful as they mapped the new region today.
Word Origin & History
Inherited from Middle English territorie, from Latin territōrium.
Literary Quotations & Historical Citations
"Lewis of France had his infancy attended by crafty and worldly men, who made extent of territory the most glorious instance of power, and mistook the acquisition of fame, for the spreading of honour."
— 1711 August 9, “The Love of Glory”, in The Spectator, volume 3:
"Economics is a messy discipline: too fluid to be a science, too rigorous to be an art. Perhaps it is fitting that economists’ most-used metric, gross domestic product (GDP), is a tangle too. GDP measures the total value of output in an economic territory. Its apparent simplicity explains why it is scrutinised down to tenths of a percentage point every month."
— 2013 August 3, “Boundary problems”, in The Economist, volume 408, number 8847:
"Scotland had the territory and the momentum, forcing England into almost twice as many tackles and rattling them repeatedly at set-pieces."
— 2011 October 1, Tom Fordyce, “Rugby World Cup 2011: England 16-12 Scotland”, in BBC Sport:
"A well-designed sales territory allows a salesperson to make best use of his time with present and potential customers and minimize travel time."
— 1993, Robert D. Hisrich, Ralph W. Jackson, Selling and Sales Management, →ISBN, page 160:
"The establishment of a personal territory almost invariably precedes the sharing of a territory with a mate. For those who are unable to make a break from the parental home, this stage is almost never reached."
— 1979, Raymond Lifchez, Barbara Winslow, Design for Independent Living, →ISBN, page 97:
Explore More B2 Vocabulary Words
CEFR Practice Quiz
The wolf marked its ____ by leaving scent marks on trees around the forest.
CEFR Practice Quiz (Alternate)
The explorers were traveling through unknown ____ and they had to be very careful as they mapped the new region today.