jamestown

noun

1. a village in E Virginia: first permanent English settlement in North America 1607; restored 1957.
2. a city in SW New York.
3. a city in central North Dakota.
4. a seaport in and the capital of St. Helena, in the S Atlantic Ocean.

noun

1. a British island in the S Atlantic: Napoleon’s place of exile 1815–21. 47 sq. mi. (122 sq. km).
2. a British colony comprising this island, Ascension Island, and the Tristan da Cunha group. 126 sq. mi. (326 sq. km). Capital: Jamestown.

noun

1. a ruined village in E Virginia, on Jamestown Island (a peninsula in the James River): the first permanent settlement by the English in America (1607); capital of Virginia (1607–98); abandoned in 1699

The first permanent English settlement in North America, founded in 1607 in Virginia. Jamestown was named for King James I of England. It was destroyed later in the seventeenth century in an uprising of Virginians against the governor.