How small is an isle?

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isle
n.
a small island

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[+5] - contrex - 12/25/2013An isle is as small or as large as you want it to be. Ireland is often called the "Emerald Isle". The British Isles is a collection of islands comprising Great Britain, Ireland, the Isles...
[+3] - Setanta - 12/25/2013I would say that anyone who claims that there are any set dimensions for an isle is peddling BS. Isle is, at least in modern usage, simply a comparative term, the purpose of which is to establish...

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@oristarA,

oristarA wrote:

isle
n.
a small island

Well, see here:
(It is big enough to be your huge yard or your private airport)
Fair Isle is the most remote inhabited island in the United Kingdom.[7] It is
administratively part of Shetland and is roughly equidistant from Sumburgh Head some 38 kilometres (24 mi) to the northeast on the Mainland of Shetland[8][9] and North Ronaldsay, Orkney some 43 kilometres (27 mi) to the southwest.[6] Fair Isle is 4.8 kilometres (3.0 mi) in length and 2.4 kilometres (1.5 mi) wide. It has an area of 768 hectares (3 square miles), making it the tenth largest of the Shetland Islands. It gives its name to one of the British Sea Areas.[10]

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@oristarA,

According to Merriam Webster, apparently isle is short for islet.
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/isle

Quote:

Whether an islet is considered a rock or not can have significant economic consequences under Article 121 of the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, which stipulates that "Rocks which cannot sustain human habitation or economic life of their own shall have no exclusive economic zone or continental shelf." One long-term dispute over the status of such an islet was that of Snake Island (Black Sea).[2][3][4]

I can't seem to find the actual maximum dimensions that an isle must be before it is no longer an isle and then considered an normal sized island.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islet

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I don't think there's necessarily a maximum dimension it can get to be before it's considered an island. It's more a matter of whatever it's named conventionally.The Isle of Capri is about 4 square miles. Isle au Haut off the coast of Maine is 12.52 sq. miles. The Isle of Man, a dependency of the UK is 52 x 22km at its widest point, which is about 221 square miles. Australia, while I suppose it's technically an island, is a continent, and is way too big to be considered an Isle. Englan/Wales/Scotland, and the Irish Republic are each considered islands, but are too big to be an isle. The island of Ireland is 32,595 square miles, so somewhere between 221 mi^2 and 32,000 mi^2 it grows up and becomes an island.

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re Oristar: Fair Isle is probably where those multicolor pastel Fair Isle wool sweaters and scarves originated, I would guess. Very preppy and posh (I'm doing this on my sister's Mac, rather than my PC and I can't figure out how to cut and paste something on it, but you can google "pictures of Fair Isle knitting" to see some--on something that small, that's probably what you do for excitement on a Saturday night, knit something).

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I would say that anyone who claims that there are any set dimensions for an isle is peddling BS. Isle is, at least in modern usage, simply a comparative term, the purpose of which is to establish that the "isle" in question is small. The term has no set reference to dimensions. In fact, it is often used without any such reference at all. The Isle of Man, home to the now dead language, Manx, is 221 square miles--that's a great deal larger than what people would ordinarily call an islet. The Isle of Skye in the western islands of Scotland, is larger still, more than 600 square miles. The use of isle in their names really has nothing to do with size.

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The great Irish traditional music group, The Chieftans, and the great Irish flutist, James Galway, performing "Over the Sea to Skye":

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An isle is as small or as large as you want it to be. Ireland is often called the "Emerald Isle". The British Isles is a collection of islands comprising Great Britain, Ireland, the Isles of Man and Wight, the Shetland and Orkney isles/islands and others (over 6,000 altogether). England, which occupies only part of the island of Great Britain, has famously been called "this scepter'd isle".

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Bigger than an islet.

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@Setanta,

James Galway's brother lives near here. Nice guy. He's got one of the golden flutes, too.

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@contrex,

Contrex is touching on what I wanted to say, namely that "isle" is often used poetically and descriptively.
I has nothing, as already stated, to do with actual size of the island in question, and should not in my opinion be compared with the word "islet" which by definition is a small island.
Otherwise, it is used as a synonym for "island" and that can run to any size, e.g. Madagascar.

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@McTag,

... and he plays sax, and clarinet as well. (And shouldn't be confused with George Galloway Wink

)

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@McTag,

The cathedral town Ely (one of my favourites) is an island as well - from ealand, a "river-land, watered place, meadow by a river"(German: "Eiland" = "Insel").

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@McTag,

McTag wrote:

it is used as a synonym for "island" and that can run to any size, e.g. Madagascar.

In Britain, the Isle Of Wight is much larger than Barry, Burnbeck, Foulness or Hayling Islands. Greenland, the worlds largest island if you don't count Australia, has an area of 2,130,800 square kilometres.

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And here;s the "Skye Boat Song", by the Corries. Bonnie Prince Charlie, the pretender to the Scottish throne, and his forces were defeated by the Brits at the Battle of Culloden, and he fled for his life to the Isle of Skye, and then I imagine, back to France, never to return. Toiok 'em almost three hudred years to get some autonomy back. When i was a sophomore in high school, there was a variety show assembly, and a senior sang this song, and I've loved it ever since, and that was decades ago

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=86egt8PDmos&noredirect=1

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And here;s the "Skye Boat Song", by the Corries. Bonnie Prince Charlie, the pretender to the Scottish throne, and his forces were defeated by the Brits at the Battle of Culloden, and he fled for his life to the Isle of Skye, and then I imagine, back to France, never to return. Took 'em almost three hudred years to get some autonomy back. When i was a sophomore in high school, there was a variety show assembly, and a senior sang this song, and I've loved it ever since, and that was decades ago

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=86egt8PDmos&noredirect=1

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@MontereyJack,

England and Scotland were joined by Acts of Union. Bonnie Prince Charlie was a pretender to both kingdoms, not just Scotland. He was financed by the French who wanted to impose a Catholic monarch and dilute the powers of parliament in the process.

Quote:

Charles Stuart's Jacobite army consisted largely of Scottish Highlanders, as well as a number of Lowland Scots and a small detachment of Englishmen from the Manchester Regiment. The Jacobites were supported and supplied by the Kingdom of France and French and Irish units loyal to France were part of the Jacobite army. The British Government (Hanoverian loyalist) forces were mostly English, along with a significant number of Scottish Lowlanders and Highlanders, a battalion of Ulstermen and a small number of Hessians from Germany and Austrians

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Culloden

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How small is an isle?

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