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Wil·ming·ton (wĭlmĭng-tən)
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1. The largest city of Delaware, on the Delaware River southwest of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It was founded as Fort Christina by Swedish settlers in 1638 and held by the Dutch from 1655 until 1664, when it was taken by the English. E.I. Du Pont built a powder mill nearby in 1802, which established Wilmington's chemical industry. Following the liberalization of Delaware's banking laws in the 1980s, the city became a center of the credit card industry.
2. A city of southeast North Carolina near the mouth of the Cape Fear River south of Raleigh. Settled c. 1730, it is the state's largest port and was used by blockade runners during the Civil War.

The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition copyright ©2022 by HarperCollins Publishers. All rights reserved.
 

Indo-European & Semitic Roots Appendices

    Thousands of entries in the dictionary include etymologies that trace their origins back to reconstructed proto-languages. You can obtain more information about these forms in our online appendices:

    Indo-European Roots

    Semitic Roots

    The Indo-European appendix covers nearly half of the Indo-European roots that have left their mark on English words. A more complete treatment of Indo-European roots and the English words derived from them is available in our Dictionary of Indo-European Roots.