1. British Isles - Noun
2. British Isles - Proper noun
Great Britain and Ireland and adjacent islands in the north Atlantic
Source: WordNetBetween the early 1600s and the 1950s, more than 20 million people left the British Isles to begin new lives across the seas. Only a minority ever returned. No other country in the world came close to exporting so many of its inhabitants. Niall Ferguson
In 1615 the British Isles had been an economically unremarkable, politically fractious and strategically second-class entity. Two hundred years later Great Britain had acquired the largest empire the world had ever seen, encompassing forty-three colonies in five continents. Niall Ferguson
Each section of the British Isles has its own way of laughing, except Wales, which doesn't. Stephen Leacock
His home the Western giant smiles, And twirls the spotty globe to find it This little speck, the British Isles 'T is but a freckle,never mind it. Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.
It is equality of monotony which makes the strength of the British Isles. Eleanor Roosevelt
This might sound really foolish, but when I came to Edinburgh in 1988 I had spent nearly all my life living south of Bristol, and I was just amazed that a city like Edinburgh was actually in the British isles. David Nicholls