archipelago
/ˌɑɹkəˈpɛləˌɡoʊ/
Word Rarity
Rare
Frequency: 3.33 in modern English
19
Scrabble Score
11
Letters
5
Syllables
10
Unique Chars
Meaning
noun
A sea or other body of water with many islands.
noun
A thing comprising many other scattered things.
noun
A thing comprising many other scattered things.
verb
To scatter or strew (a place, or something) with things that collectively resemble a group of many islands.
Transitive verb
Example Sentences
- "[M]any other iles within the Archpelago that is yͤ Gulf be twix Grese and Turkye that cometh from the Grekes see in to the grete see before Constantynople, thorow the brace of Seynt George·"
- "[W]hen in his imagination he had ſettled his rout, through Holland and France to Sicily, vvhich he had long vviſhed to ſee, and from thence to the Archipelago, he breathed freer, and felt himſelf more reconciled to exiſtence."
- "The long, lofty, and naked backbone of the island of Eubœa may be viewed as a continuance both of this chain and of the chain of Othrys: the line is farther prolonged by a series of islands in the Archipelago, Andros, Tênos, Mykonos, and Naxos, belonging to the group called the Cyclades of islands encircling the sacred centre of Delos."
- "I have not met with any account of the land birds being so tame, in any other quarter of the world, as at the Galapagos and Falkland Islands. And it may be observed that of the few archipelagoes of any size, which when discovered were uninhabited by man, these two are among the most important."
- "For many years past the whale-ship has been the pioneer in ferreting out the remotest and least known parts of the earth. She has explored seas and archipelagoes which had no chart, where no [James] Cook or [George] Vancouver had ever sailed."
- "Such good progress had been made that at sunrise the lighthouse on the rocks of Landsort was visible, and the jagged masses of that archipelago of cloven isles which extends all the way to Tornea, began to stud the sea."
Etymology
The noun is borrowed from Italian arcipelago (“Aegean Sea; group of many islands”), from arci- (variant of archi- (prefix meaning ‘foremost, primary’)) + pelago (“(open) sea”): * Archi- is derived from Latin archi-, from Ancient Greek ᾰ̓ρχῐ- (ărkhĭ-, prefix denoting primary authority or importance), from ἄρχω (árkhō, “to begin; to lead, rule”) or ᾰ̓ρχός (ărkhós, “leader, ruler”); further etymology uncertain, possibly from Proto-Indo-European *h₂er- (“to fit, put together”) or *h₂ergʰ- (“to begin; to command, rule”). * Pelago is from Latin pelagus (“sea”), from Ancient Greek πέλᾰγος (pélăgos, “sea”); further etymology uncertain, possibly from Proto-Indo-European *pleh₂- (“flat”) or a non-Indo-European language. By surface analysis, archi- (prefix meaning ‘foremost, primary’) + -pelago (suffix meaning ‘sea’). Noun sense 2.1 (“sea with many islands”) is from the fact that the Aegean Sea has many islands, and noun sense 2.2 (“group of many islands”) represents a shift of meaning from the sea to the islands in such a sea. The verb is derived from the noun. cognates * Greek αρχιπέλαγος (archipélagos)
Origin
- Source language: Latin
Word Breakdown
Regional Pronunciation
- American English: /ˌɑɹkəˈpɛləˌɡoʊ/
- British English: /ˌɑːkɪˈpɛlɪɡəʊ/