[WEST a. See INDIES and cf. EAST INDIES.] † a. The parts of America first discovered by Columbus and other early navigators. Obs. b. The West India Islands.
1555. Eden, Decades (Arb.), 208. Suche thynges as I haue seene in yowre Empyre of the West Indies.
1577. Eden & Willes (title), The History of Trauayle in the West and East Indies.
1594. Blundevil, Exerc., Deser. Univ. Maps (1597), 368 b. America, which we now call the West Indies.
1625. Bacon, Ess., Viciss. Things, ¶ 1. The great Burnings by Lightnings, which are often in the West Indies.
1647. Cowley, Mistr., Leaving Me, 15. Mine too her rich West-Indies were below, Where Mines of Gold and endless treasures grow.
1662. Stillingfl., Orig. Sacr., III. iv. § 4. All those strange species of animals seen in the West-Indies.
1731. Miller, Gard. Dict., s.v. Melo, Those Melons which are produc’d in the West-Indies are generally very large.
1766. Goldsm., Vicar, xx. He was heir to a fortune … left him by an uncle in the West Indies.
1837. Dickens, Pickw., xxvii. Providing the infant negroes in the West Indies with flannel waistcoats.
Comb. 1616. Capt. J. Smith, Descr. New Eng., Wks. (Arb.), 225. The next was a West Indies man, of 160 tuns. [Cf. next and WEST INDIAMAN.]
