What does peninsula mean?
Word: Peninsula
Part of Speech: Noun
Meaning: Peninsula means a piece of land almost surrounded by water but joined to a larger area of land on one side.
Sounds like: peninsular (the adjective, as in peninsular India)
How do you spell peninsula?
Syllables: pe - nin - su - la
Tricky part: There is only one n after the first e, and the noun ends in a. Peninsular, with an r, is the adjective.
Watch out for: penninsula, penensula, peninsulla
Memory tip: A pen lying on a map with its tip in the sea has a peninsula shape: write pen, then in, with only one n after the e.
Peninsula in a sentence
Example 1: Cape Town lies at the northern end of the Cape Peninsula.
Example 2: The village was on a narrow peninsula with the sea on three sides.
Example 3: We traced the outline of a peninsula on our geography map.
Fun Fact
The name comes from Latin words meaning almost an island. The Arabian Peninsula is often called the largest peninsula in the world.
Practise the CREST Way
Word Cookie
Find the misspelt word in the sentence:
From the lighthouse, we could see the whole peninsila stretching far out into the sea.
a) stretching
b) whole
c) peninsila
d) lighthouse
Show answer
c) peninsila. The Latin insula, island, gives the u in the middle.
Spell-o-Spell
Choose the correctly spelt word:
a) continant
b) peninsula
c) archipeligo
d) plateu
Show answer
b) peninsula. Archipelago has an a after l, plateau ends in eau, and continent ends in ent.
Mingle-Mangle
Form a meaningful word from the jumbled letters:
lunasipen
a) peninsular
b) pinnacle
c) peninsula
d) insulate
Show answer
c) peninsula. There is no r in the jumble, so the answer is the noun peninsula.
Multiple Choice Questions
1. Which of these places is a peninsula, not an island?
a) Iceland
b) mainland Italy
c) Madagascar
d) Sri Lanka
Show answer
b) mainland Italy
2. Which seas and ocean surround the southern Indian peninsula?
a) the Red Sea, the Black Sea and the Dead Sea
b) the Arabian Sea, the Bay of Bengal and the Indian Ocean
c) the North Sea, the Baltic and the Caspian
d) the Pacific, the Atlantic and the Arctic
Show answer
b) the Arabian Sea, the Bay of Bengal and the Indian Ocean
