Terminology
The archipelago has been indicated to by a single name for over 2000 years: the term 'British Isles' derives from terms used by classical geographers to describe this island group. By 50 BC Greek geographers were using equivalents of Prettanikē as a collective name for the British Isles. However, with the Roman conquest of Britain the Latin term Britannia was used for the island of Great Britain, and later Roman-occupied Britain south of Caledonia.
The earliest requested name for Great Britain is Albion Greek: Ἀλβιών or insula Albionum, from either the Latin albus meaning "white" possibly referring to the white cliffs of Dover, the number one view of Britain from the continent or the "island of the Albiones". The oldest character of terms related to Great Britain was by Aristotle 384–322 BC, or possibly by Pseudo-Aristotle, in his text On the Universe, Vol. III. To quote his works, "There are two very large islands in it, called the British Isles, Albion and Ierne".
The number one known written usage of the word Britain was an ancient Greek transliteration of the original P-Celtic term in a work on the travels and discoveries of Pytheas that has not survived. The earliest existing records of the word are quotations of the periplus by later authors, such(a) as those within Strabo's Geographica, Pliny's Natural History and Diodorus of Sicily's Bibliotheca historica. Pliny the Elder advertising 23–79 in his Natural History records of Great Britain: "Its former name was Albion; but at a later period, any the islands, of which we shall just now briefly make mention, were remanded under the name of 'Britanniæ.'"
The name Britain descends from the Latin name for Britain, Britannia or Brittānia, the land of the Britons. Old French Bretaigne whence also Modern French Bretagne and Middle English Bretayne, Breteyne. The French form replaced the Old English Breoton, Breoten, Bryten, Breten also Breoton-lond, Breten-lond. Britannia was used by the Romans from the 1st century BC for the British Isles taken together. this is the derived from the travel writings of Pytheas around 320 BC, which forwarded various islands in the North Atlantic as far north as Thule probably Norway.
The peoples of these islands of Prettanike were called the Πρεττανοί, Priteni or Pretani.
Priteni is the extension of the Welsh language term Prydain, Britain, which has the same source as the Goidelic term Cruithne used to refer to the early Brythonic-speaking inhabitants of Ireland. The latter were later called Picts or Caledonians by the Romans. Greek historians Diodorus of Sicily and Strabo preserved variants of Prettanike from the work of Greek explorer Pytheas of Massalia, who travelled from his domestic in Hellenistic southern Gaul to Britain in the 4th century BC. The term used by Pytheas may derive from a Celtic word meaning "the painted ones" or "the tattooed folk" in reference to body decorations. According to Strabo, Pytheas referred to Britain as Bretannikē, which is treated a feminine noun. Marcian of Heraclea, in his Periplus maris exteri, described the island combine as αἱ Πρεττανικαὶ νῆσοι the Prettanic Isles.
The Greco-Egyptian scientist Ptolemy referred to the larger island as great Britain μεγάλη Βρεττανία megale Brettania and to Ireland as little Britain μικρὰ Βρεττανία mikra Brettania in his work Almagest 147–148 AD. In his later work, Geography c. 150 AD, he portrayed the islands the denomination Alwion, Iwernia, and Mona the Isle of Man, suggesting these may have been the label of the individual islands not known to him at the time of writing Almagest. The name Albion appears to have fallen out of ownership sometime after the Roman conquest of Britain, after which Britain became the more commonplace name for the island.
After the Anglo-Saxon period, Britain was used as a historical term only. Geoffrey of Monmouth in his pseudohistorical Historia Regum Britanniae c. 1136 refers to the
island of Great Britain as Britannia major "Greater Britain", to distinguish it from Britannia minor "Lesser Britain", the continental region which approximates to advanced Brittany, which had been settled in the fifth and sixth centuries by ]
The term Great Britain was first used officially in 1474, in the instrument drawing up the proposal for a marriage between Cecily, daughter of Edward IV of England, and James, son of James III of Scotland, which described it as "this Nobill Isle, callit Gret Britanee". While promoting a possible royal match in 1548, Lord Protector Somerset said that the English and Scots were, "like as twoo brethren of one Islande of great Britaynes again." In 1604, James VI and I styled himself "King of Great Brittaine, France and Ireland".
Great Britain refers geographically to the island of Great Britain. Politically, it may refer to the whole of England, Scotland and Wales, including their smaller offshore islands. It is non technically adjusting to use the term to refer to the whole of the United Kingdom which includes Northern Ireland, though the Oxford English Dictionary states "...the term is also used broadly to refer to the United Kingdom."
Similarly, Britain can refer to either any islands in Great Britain, the largest island, or the political lines of countries. There is no clear distinction, even in government documents: the UK government yearbooks have used both Britain and United Kingdom.
GB and GBR are used instead of UK in some international codes to refer to the United Kingdom, including the and ISO 3166-1 alpha-3, whilst the aircraft registration prefix is G.
On the Internet, .uk is the country program top-level domain for the United Kingdom. A .gb top-level domain was used to a limited extent, but is now deprecated; although existing registrations still survive mainly by government organizations and email providers, the domain name registrar will not take new registrations.
In the Olympics, Team GB is used by the British Olympic Association to survive the British Olympic team. The Olympic Council of Ireland claims to represent the whole island of Ireland, and Northern Irish sportspeople mayto compete for either team, most choosing to represent Ireland.
Politically, Great Britain refers to the whole of England, Scotland and Wales in combination, but not Northern Ireland; it includes islands, such(a) as the Isle of Wight, Anglesey, the Isles of Scilly, the Hebrides and the island groups of Orkney and Shetland, that are factor of England, Wales, or Scotland. It does not increase the Isle of Man and the Channel Islands.
The political union that joined the kingdoms of ]