Mesoamerican.
/ˌmɛsəʊəˈmɛrᵻkə/, U.S. /ˈˌmɛzoʊəˈmɛrəkə/; see also meso- comb. form. The central region of America, extending from central Mexico to Honduras (sometimes including also Nicaragua and Panama), esp. with reference to the pre-Columbian cultures which flourished there before the Spanish conquest. More generally: Central America.
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the world > the earth > named regions of earth > America > Central and South America > [noun] > Central America
Middle America1841
Mesoamerica1948
1948 A. L. Kroeber Anthropol. (rev. ed.) xviii. 793 We have seen that native Meso-America..consisted of most of what now is Mexico and of Guatemala and that it constituted the North American half of prehistoric Nuclear America.
1967 L. Deuel Conquistadors without Swords xv. 189 The close parallels between the formative cultures of Mesoamerica and the Central Andes became evident.
1974 Encycl. Brit. Macropædia XI. 934/2 About half of Mexico; all of Guatemala, British Honduras, and El Salvador; and parts of Honduras and Costa Rica are included in Meso-America.
1997 J. Diamond Guns, Germs & Steel x. 180 Chili peppers, squashes, amaranths, and chenopods are other crops of which different but related species were domesticated in Mesoamerica and South America.
This entry has been updated (OED Third Edition, September 2001; most recently modified version published online March 2022).
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n.1948