Wake Island

Wake Island

English

An aerial photograph of Wake Island

Alternative forms

• (obsolete) Wake's Island

Etymology

Originally Wake's Island; named after Captain William Wake[1] of the Prince William Henry (a British trading schooner) between the 1790s[2][3] and 1803.[4] Alternatively said to be named for a Captain Samuel Wake.[2][5]

Pronunciation

• enPR: wāk

Proper noun

Wake Island

1. An island of the United States, among the islands of Micronesia in the Pacific Ocean, administered by the Office of Insular Affairs of the United States Department of the Interior and used solely by the United States Air Force.

   Synonym: Wake

   • For more quotations using this term, see Citations:Wake Island.
   • 1866 August 18, “LAST NEWS OF ANNA BISHOP”, in The Musical World‎, volume 44, number 33, London, OCLC 317141877, page 521:

     Intelligence has been received at Hong Kong of the total loss of the ship Libelle while on a voyage to that port from San Francisco, having on board a valuable cargo and specie to the extent of £76,000 in dollars, and a number of passengers, among whom were Madame Anna Bishop, Miss Phelan, Mr. M. Schrutz, and Mr. Charles Lascelles, of the English Opera Company, who, with other artists, were on a musical tour. The ship was cast away on the night of the 4th of March, on an uninhabited and dangerous reef called Wake Island, in the China Seas.

   • 1942 January 6, Franklin Roosevelt, 1942 President's Annual Message to Congress‎:

     There were only some four hundred United States marines who in the heroic and historic defense of Wake Island inflicted such great losses on the enemy. Some of those men were killed in action; and others are now prisoners of war.

   • 1956, Harry S. Truman, Memoirs of Harry S. Truman: Years of Trial And Hope‎, volume II, Doubleday & Company, OCLC 1036705143, pages 368-369:

     "I went out to Wake Island to see General MacArthur because I did not want to take him far away from Korea, where he is conducting very important operations with great success.[...]
     "At the same time I believed my trip to Wake Island would give emphasis to the historic action taken by the United Nations on Korea.[...]
     "At Wake Island we talked over the Far Eastern situation and its relationship to the problem of world peace.[...]
     "Now I want Wake Island to be a symbol of our unity of purpose for world peace. I want to see world peace from Wake Island west all the way around back again. I want to see world peace from Wake Island all the way east and back again — and we are going to get it!

   • 1978, Schultz, Duane, “"To Deny Wake to the Enemy"”, in Wake Island: The Heroic, Gallant Fight‎, New York: St. Martin's Press, OCLC 5063601, page 13:

     It takes only a brief glimpse at a 1941 map of the Pacific to see why Wake Island was considered to be of such strategic value to the United States and why it was such an early target in Japan's program of conquest. As the war planners on both sides saw the situation in the late 1930s, possession of Wake was vital to the defense of their territory.

Synonyms

• Wake Atoll

Derived terms

• Wake Islander, Wake Island rail

Descendants

• Translingual: Hypotaenidia wakensis

Translations

island

Chinese: Mandarin: 威克島／威克岛 (Wēikè Dǎo) Japanese: please add this translation if you can Korean: please add this translation if you can

References

1. “the ſchooner Prince William Henry, William Wake, maſter, of London”, in The New-York Magazine, September 1797, page 503
2. Central Intelligence Agency (April 19, 2022), “Wake Island”, in The World Factbook, retrieved April 22, 2022: “etymology: although first discovered by British Captain William WAKE in 1792, the island is named after British Captain Samuel WAKE, who rediscovered the island in 1796”
3. “Wake Island”, in Encyclopædia Britannica, 1 March 2019, retrieved April 22, 2022: “The atoll was visited by the British mariner William Wake (1796)”
4. Norie, John William (1803), “XX. Islands, Rocks, and Shoals in the NORTH PACIFIC OCEAN.”, in A Complete Set of Nautical Tables, Containing All that are Requisite‎, London: Author & William Heather, page 237
5. Urwin, Gregory J. W. (2002) Facing Fearful Odds: The Siege of Wake Island‎, →ISBN, page 22

Further reading

• “Wake Island”, in Collins English Dictionary.
• “Wake Island, pn.”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022.
• Wake Island at OneLook Dictionary Search
• “Wake Island”, in Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary
• “Wake Island” in TheFreeDictionary.com, Huntingdon Valley, Pa.: Farlex, Inc., 2003–2023.