Ukraine
Americannoun
noun
Usage
Is it Ukraine or the Ukraine? The official name of the country is simply Ukraine—it does not use the word "the." The use of the word the when referring to the country (once widespread but now less common) is thought to have been influenced by the period of its history when it was part of the Soviet Union. During this time, it was called the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic, before gaining full independence with the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. Most Ukrainians object to the use of the before the name because it can suggest that the nation is not fully independent.
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Ukraine came under a succession of invaders and foreign rulers, including central Asian tribes, the Mongols, Lithuania, the Ottoman Empire, Poland, and finally Russia. Under oppressive Polish and Russian rule in the seventeenth century, Ukrainian fugitives, known as Cossacks, organized resistance movements.
Ukraine was traditionally home to a large Jewish population. Many Jews (see also Jews) left Ukraine under oppressive conditions in the nineteenth century, and thousands more were exterminated by the Nazis in World War II.
Of the former Soviet republics, it is second to Russia in population.
A nationalist and cultural revival in the nineteenth century was rewarded after World War I by independence, which was, however, short-lived. Invaded by Russian troops, Ukraine became one of the original Soviet republics in 1922.
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
Conroy worked in Libya and Ukraine and had recently returned from an assignment in Cuba.
From BBC
It took countries like Ukraine and Israel time to learn how to effectively defend against the threat of drones fired by adversaries.
Even Russia's invasion of Ukraine did not affect the major air hubs of the Middle East through which travellers to destinations in much of Asia almost always transit, he said.
From Barron's
Without a doubt, the Iran attack looks to be the biggest pricing event for gasoline since the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022, said Patrick De Haan, head of petroleum analysis at GasBuddy.
From MarketWatch
Yet, the Pentagon sees the potential for autonomous weapons—with a human in the loop, as officials stress—as important to national security, given the advances seen in drone technology in places such as Ukraine.
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
