Flanders

From Middle English Flaunders, Flaundress, flawndirs, from Old French Flandres, from Middle Dutch vlâendren pl, from Vlander, from Old Frisian, from Proto-Germanic *flaumdra (“waterlogged land”), from *flaumaz (“flowing, current (water)”) (compare Old High German weraltfloum (“transitoriness of life”), Old Norse flaumr (“eddy”)), from Proto-Indo-European *plow-m- (“flow”) (compare Ancient Greek πλῠ́μα (plúma, “dishwater, washing water”)). More at flow. "Waterlogged" refers to the mudflats and salt marshes common to coastal Flanders.

• (UK) IPA^(key): /ˈflɑːn.dəz/

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• (US) IPA^(key): /ˈflæn.dɚz/
• Rhymes: (Received Pronunciation) -ɑːndə(ɹ)z, (General American) -ændə(ɹ)z

Flanders (countable and uncountable, plural Flanderses)

1. The County of Flanders, of varying extent.
   • 1613, William Shakespeare; [John Fletcher], “The Famous History of the Life of King Henry the Eight”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, OCLC 606515358, [Act III, scene ii]:

     When you went / Ambassador to the Emperor, you made bold / To carry into Flanders the great seal.

2. A subnational state in the north of federal Belgium, the institutional merger of a territorial region and the Dutch language 'community' which also has/shares some authority in the capital region Brussels.
3. Two provinces in Belgian Flanders: (West-Flanders and East-Flanders).
4. Short for French Flanders, a former province of the French kingdom on territory taken from the above countship, now constituting the French department Nord.
5. The principal railway station in Lille, capital of the above.
6. A surname.

• Belgium
• Brussels
• Wallonia

• Ferlands, Fernalds, snarfled