Gulf of Venice

English

The usual modern limits of the Gulf of Venice

Alternative forms

• Gulph of Venice

Etymology

Calque of Italian Golfo di Venetia, from consideration of the sea as a gulf of the Mediterranean and the previous importance of the Republic of Venice to its trade and major ports.

Proper noun

Gulf of Venice

1. (archaic) Synonym of Adriatic Sea.
   • 1771, Encyclopaedia Britannica, 1st ed., Vol. II, p. 184:

     CHIMÆRA, in geography, a port town of Turky in Europe, ſituated at the entrance of the gulph of Venice, in the province of Epirus, about thirty-two miles north of the city Corfu, near which are the mountains of Chimæra, which divide Epirus from Theſſaly...

2. (informal) A wide gulf at the north end of the Adriatic Sea, bound on the south by the line between Maestra Point in the Po delta and Cape Kamenjak on the Istrian Peninsula.

Hyponyms

• Gulf of Trieste