Upper Volta
proper noun
Forms the Upper Volta
- proper noun A territory now coextensive with Burkina Faso.
- proper noun (historical) A colony of French West Africa established in 1919 in the territory occupied by present-day Burkina Faso, dissolved in 1932, revived in 1947 as a part of the French Union (with its previous boundaries), and in 1958 reconstituted as a self-governing country (sense 1.2).
- proper noun Former name of Burkina Faso: a country in West Africa, used from 1958 to 1984.
Synonyms
Etymology
Calque of French Haute-Volta, from haute (“high; upper”) + Volta (“the Volta, a river in West Africa”), from Portuguese Volta.
Sources: Wiktionary · WordNet 3.0 — from the Wiktionary entry “Upper Volta”, CC BY-SA 4.0. Details