archipelago

Definition

A group of islands.

Etymology

From Italian arcipelago, formed on the basis of Ancient Greek ἀρχι- (arkhi-, “main”) + πέλαγος (pélagos, “sea”), a designation for the Aegean Sea. (Compare arch- and high seas.) The Aegean Sea is a sea with many islands; the term Arcipelago, originally a proper noun referring to the Aegean Sea, was first generalized to a common noun for any sea with many islands, and then to the islands in such a sea. By surface analysis, archi- + -pelago.

Example Sentences

• "For many years past the whaleship 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 Cook or Vancouver had ever sailed."
• "[I]n his imagination he had settled his route, through Holland and France to Sicily, which he had long wished to see, and from thence to the Archipelago […]."
• "the Gulag Archipelago"