Antilles, a name of somewhat loose application, but generally given to two groups of the West India islands. The name of Antilla is sometimes supposed to have been applied by Columbus to his first discoveries in the new world, because a continent of that name had previously been believed to exist W. of the Azores. Others derive the word from ante islas (forward islands), and apply it to the Caribbean group. At the present day geographers generally distinguish Cuba, Hayti, Porto Rico, Jamaica, and the small neighboring islands of Caymanbrack, Great and Little Cayman, and Isla de Pinos as the Greater Antilles; and the Windward group or Caribbeans, extending in a semicircular line from Porto Rico to the mouth of the Orinoco, as the Lesser Antilles. (See West Indies.)