Definition of "Australia"

Australia

/ɒˈstɹeɪl.jə/

proper noun
1. A country and island in Oceania. Official name: Commonwealth of Australia. Capital: Canberra.
  Quotations
  This is all that I can have a certain knowledge of as to that side of Australia ...
  1693: translation of a French novel by Jacques Sadeur (believed to be a pen name of Gabriel de Foigny) titled Les Aventures de Jacques Sadeur dans la Découverte et le Voiage de la Terre Australe published 1692, translation published in London in 1693. Quoted in The Australian Language by Sidney J. Baker, second edition, 1966, chapter XIX, section 1, pages 388-9.
  Had I permitted myself any innovation upon the original term, it would have been to convert it into AUSTRALIA; as being more agreeable to the ear, and an assimilation to the names of the other great portions of the earth.
  1814, Matthew Flinders, A Voyage to Terra Australis, volume 1 (at Project Gutenberg)
2. (geology) A continent consisting of the islands of Australia, New Guinea and intervening islands. New Guinea and the intervening islands are also on the Australian tectonic plate and are thus geologically considered part of the continent.