Pearl Harbor

English

Wikipedia

Etymology 1

From pearl + harbor

Proper noun

Pearl Harbor

1. Deep water harbor on Oahu, Hawaii
2. US Navy base at the harbor.

Translations

a harbor on Hawaii

• Arabic: بيرل هاربر (ar) (birl haarbar) m
• Belarusian: Перл-Харбар (be) (Perl-Xárbar) m
• Bulgarian: Пърл Харбър (bg) (Pǎrl Hárbǎr) m
• Chinese:

  Mandarin: 珍珠港 (cmn) (Zhēnzhū gǎng)

• Greek: Περλ Χάρμπορ (el) (Perl Chárbor)
• Hebrew: פרל הארבור (he)
• Hindi: पर्ल हार्बर (hi) (parl hārbar)
• Japanese: 真珠湾 (ja) (しんじゅわん, Shinjuwan), パールハーバー (ja) (Pāruhābā)
• Korean: 진주만 (ko) (Jinjuman) (珍珠灣 (ko)), 펄 하버 (ko) (Peol Habeo)

• Macedonian: Перл Харбор (mk) (Perl Hárbor) m
• Marathi: पर्ल हार्बर (mr) (parla hārbara)
• Persian: پرل هاربر (fa) (Perl Hârbor)
• Russian: Пёрл-Харбор (ru) (Pjorl-Xárbor) m, Перл-Харбор (ru) (Pjorl-Xárbor, Perl-Xárbor) m
• Serbo-Croatian:

  Cyrillic: Перл Харбор (sh) m

• Thai: ท่าเรือเพิร์ล (th)
• Ukrainian: Перл-Харбор (uk) (Perl-Xárbor) m

Etymology 2

From the December 7, 1941, surprise attack by the Imperial Japanese Navy on Pearl Harbor.

Noun

Pearl Harbor

1. A sneak attack, often using underhanded measures.
   • 2002, Richard F. Hill, Hitler Attacks Pearl Harbor: Why the United States Declared War on Germany, page 85

     Most Americans wanted no more Pearl Harbors, but they now expected Germany to attempt one.

2. A seminal dramatic event that unites a community and arouses it into action against an enemy.
   • 2012 July 6, Milton Clary (interviewee), Lorenzo Franceschi-Bicchierai (author), “Drone Hijacking? That’s Just the Start of GPS Troubles” [1], Wired

     “We certainly don’t want a GPS Pearl Harbor, but probably it’s gonna take a GPS Mogadishu to get people’s attention.”