archipelago en · NOUN
Pronunciation
- audio -
- (General-American) audio
- /-lə-/ (Received-Pronunciation)
- /ˌɑːkɪˈpɛlɪɡəʊ/ (Received-Pronunciation)
- /-t͡ʃə-/ (General-American)
- /ˌɑɹkəˈpɛləˌɡoʊ/ (General-American)
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)
Meanings
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(archaic) Preceded by the, and often in the form Archipelago: the Aegean Sea.
[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.
1791, Charlotte Smith, chapter II, in Celestina. […], volume IV, London: […] T[homas] Cadell, […], →OCLC, page 48: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.
1846, George Grote, “General Geography and Limits of Greece”, in History of Greece, volume II, London: John Murray, […], →OCLC, part II (Historical Greece), pages 282–283:[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·
c. 1502, Richard Arnold, “The Copye of a Carete Compasyng the Cireuet of the Wolde and the Compace of Euery Yland Comprehendid ī the Same”, in [Francis Douce], editor, The Customs of London, otherwise Called Arnold’s Chronicle; […], London: […] [Harding and Wright] for F[rancis] C[harles] and J[ohn] Rivington; T[homas] Payne; Wilkie and Robinson, Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown; Cadell and Davies; J[oseph] Mawman; and R[obert] H[arding] Evans, published 1811, →OCLC, page 143:
- (broadly) A sea or other body of water with many islands.
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(broadly, collective) A group of many islands.
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.
1858, Bayard Taylor, “A Winter Voyage on the Baltic”, in Northern Travel: Summer and Winter Pictures of Sweden, Denmark and Lapland, New York, N.Y.: G[eorge] P[almer] Putnam, […], →OCLC, page 19: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.
1839, Charles Darwin, chapter XIX, in Narrative of the Surveying Voyages of His Majesty’s Ships Adventure and Beagle, between the Years 1826 and 1836, […], volume III, London: Henry Colburn, […], →OCLC, pages 477–478: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.
1851 November 14, Herman Melville, “The Advocate”, in Moby-Dick; or, The Whale, 1st American edition, New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers; London: Richard Bentley, →OCLC, page 120:By the end of this "Spanish century", Spanish sailors had discovered and named the archipelagos of the Philippines, Marianas, Carolinas and Marquesas, New Guinea, the Santa Cruz Islands, the Solomons, Hawaii, Wake Island, Guam, Iwo Jima, the New Hebrides, Guadalcanal, the Gilbert Islands and the Marshall Islands, the Galapagos, Juan Fernandez, Flores and Bikini, as well as the Torres Strait and Austrialia or Australia, named in honour of the Spanish kings of the House of Austria, not to mention many other lands with whose names we are no longer familiar.
1992 May, Alfonso de la Serna, “The Pacific Shuttle: A Maritime Network of Communication between Three Continents”, in Adel Rifaat, editor, The UNESCO Courier, Paris: United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, →ISSN, →OCLC, page 30, column 2:
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(figuratively) A thing comprising many other scattered things.
Beneath these talismans, white linen shone around the burnished reflections of the Atreides silver, which had been placed in precise arrangements along the great table—little archipelagos of service waiting beside crystal glasses, each setting squared off before a heavy wooden chair.
1965 October 1, Frank Herbert, “Book I: Dune”, in Dune, Philadelphia, Pa.: Chilton Book Company; [Toronto], Ont.: Thomas Nelson & Sons, →OCLC, page 124:the Gulag Archipelago
And the Kolyma was the greatest and most famous island, the pole of ferocity of that amazing country of Gulag which, though scattered in an Archipelago geographically, was, in the psychological sense, fused into a continent—an almost invisible, almost imperceptible country inhabited by the zek people.
1973, Aleksandr I[sayevich] Solzhenitsyn, “Preface”, in Thomas P[orter] Whitney, transl., The Gulag Archipelago 1918–1956: An Experiment in Literary Investigation: I–II, New York, N.Y.; Evanston, Ill.: Harper & Row, →OCLC, pages ix–x:[T]he continent was an archipelago of insulated communities, in which men were separated as much by their social jealousies as by the natural impediments to union and combination.
1862, Charles Merivale, chapter LX, in A History of the Romans under the Empire, volume VII, London: […] [Spottiswoode and Co.] for Longman, Green, Longman, Roberts, & Green, […], →OCLC, page 8:Perhaps these experiences—seeing so many holidays become indistinguishable three-day temporal archipelagos and learning that if I had waited a few more years I might have missed the siestas—led me to the concept of temporal conservation. […] The idea is not to save time in the time management sense; rather, it is to save times. Or at least to preserve some of them.
2002, Allen C. Bluedorn, “New Times”, in The Human Organization of Time: Temporal Realities and Experience, Stanford, Calif.: Stanford Business Books, Stanford University Press, →ISBN, pages 248–249:
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(figuratively) A thing comprising many other scattered things. ▸ A cross-game modification system that randomizes in-game abilities and items scattered across multiple and different modded games
This is a cross-game randomizer that connects three of my favorite FNaF games into one: called an Archipelago; I start with the bare minimum to begin each game and every item, checkpoint, ability that I'll need to beat all three, must be unlocked as checks.
2026 July 24, David Lett, “I tried a 3 FNAF game CROSS-RANDOMIZER”, in YouTube:
Forms
| Spelling | Features | Labels | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| archipelagoes | Number=Plur | lexicographic | |
| archipelagos | Number=Plur | lexicographic |
Deriveds
archipelagic · archipelagian · archipelago big-eyed treefrog · archipelagoed · subarchipelago · archipelagal
Hyponyms
Arctic Archipelago (place names) · Bazaruto Archipelago (place names) · Japanese archipelago (place names) · Canadian Arctic Archipelago (place names) · Nordenskiöld Archipelago (place names)
Synonyms
Translations (176)
nn arkipel (group of many islands) · lt archipelagas (group of many islands) · sw funguvisiwa (group of many islands) · hy կղզիախումբ (group of many islands) · cy ynysfor (group of many islands) · my ကျွန်းစု (group of many islands) · te ద్వీపసమూహం (group of many islands) · fo oyggjahav (group of many islands) · ps مجمع الجزاير (group of many islands) · cs souostroví (group of many islands) · sk archipel (group of many islands) · mn олтриг (group of many islands) · ta தீவுக்கூட்டம் (group of many islands) · ml ദ്വീപസമൂഹം (group of many islands) · gd innis-mhuir (group of many islands) · lb Archipel (group of many islands) · nl archipel (group of many islands) · ur مَجْمَعُ الْجَزائِر (group of many islands) · wa iyreye (group of many islands) · tg галаҷазира (group of many islands) · fa-ira مَجْمَعُالْجَزایِر (group of many islands) · ckb کۆمەڵە دوورگە (group of many islands) · scn arcipèlacu (group of many islands) · ky архипелаг (group of many islands) · sv skärgård (group of many islands) · nap arcepelaco (group of many islands) · ca arxipèlag (group of many islands) · nb øygruppe (group of many islands) · yi אַרכיפּעלאַג (group of many islands) · uz arxipelag (group of many islands) · vi quần đảo (group of many islands) · gv mooirinshyn (group of many islands) · tr cezzar (group of many islands) · ko 렬도 (group of many islands) · ug تاقىم ئارال (group of many islands) · mk архипела́г (group of many islands) · prs مَجْمَعُالْجَزَایِر (group of many islands) · es archipiélago (group of many islands) · mi huinga motu (group of many islands) · kn ದ್ವೀಪಸಮೂಹ (group of many islands) · mr द्वीपसमूह (group of many islands) · as দ্বীপ-পুঞ্জ (group of many islands) · ig ọ̀tú àgwà (group of many islands) · sh архипѐла̄г (group of many islands) · ilo purpúro (group of many islands) · km ប្រជុំកោះ (group of many islands) · ar أَرْخَبِيل (group of many islands) · yue 群島 /群岛 (group of many islands) · zdj masiwa (group of many islands) · ga oileánra (group of many islands) · lv arhipelāgs (group of many islands) · vec arcipełago (group of many islands) · fi saariryhmä (group of many islands) · et saarestik (group of many islands) · tt архипелаг (group of many islands) · ota آرال (group of many islands) · kmr arxîpel (group of many islands) · ja 列島 (group of many islands) · fi rykelmä (thing comprising many other scattered things) · ka არქიპელაგი (group of many islands) · io insularo (group of many islands) · cbk arquipelago (group of many islands) · sh arhipèlāg (group of many islands) · el αρχιπέλαγος (group of many islands) · eo arkipelago (group of many islands) · hi द्वीप-पुंज (group of many islands) · sv ögrupp (group of many islands) · jv kapuloan (group of many islands) · kk архипелаг (group of many islands) · to ʻotu motu (group of many islands) · pl archipelag (group of many islands) · eu uhartedi (group of many islands) · nb skjærgård (group of many islands) · gcf achipèl (group of many islands) · br enezeg (group of many islands) · nds-de Archipel (group of many islands) · sk archipelág (group of many islands) · cmn 列島 /列岛 (group of many islands) · cmn 群島 /群岛 (group of many islands) · he אַרְכִיפֶּלָג (group of many islands) · gl arquipélago (group of many islands) · pap archipelago (group of many islands) · io arkipelago (group of many islands) · it arcipelago (group of many islands) · sh òtōčje (group of many islands) · sh о̀то̄чје (group of many islands) · az arxipelaq (group of many islands) · ilo arquipelago (group of many islands) · tg архипелаг (group of many islands) · tl kapuluan (group of many islands) · kmr komgirav (group of many islands) · ht achipèl (group of many islands) · vo nisulem (group of many islands) · de Inselgruppe (group of many islands) · is eyjaklasi (group of many islands) · ast archipiélagu (group of many islands) · co arcipelacu (group of many islands) · yue 列島 /列岛 (group of many islands) · be архіпела́г (group of many islands) · sco airchipelago (group of many islands) · sl arhipelag (group of many islands) · eo insularo (group of many islands) · sh ostrvlje (group of many islands) · sv arkipelag (group of many islands) · bcl arkipelago (group of many islands) · sh острвље (group of many islands) · de Inselhaufen (group of many islands) · bn দ্বীপপুঞ্জ (group of many islands) · da øgruppe (group of many islands) · kk топарал (group of many islands) · pt arquipélago (group of many islands) · lt salynas (group of many islands) · pa ਟਾਪੂ-ਸਮੂਹ (group of many islands) · pms arsipélagh (group of many islands) · km កំរងកោះ (group of many islands) · fi saarekas vesistö (sea or other body of water with many islands) · tg маҷмаулҷазоир (group of many islands) · ru архипела́г (group of many islands) · lo ຫມູ່ດອນ (group of many islands) · pon kahndeke (group of many islands) · fy arsjipel (group of many islands) · tk arhipelag (group of many islands) · csb òstrowina (group of many islands) · et arhipelaag (group of many islands) · fr archipel (group of many islands) · af argipel (group of many islands) · hu szigetvilág (group of many islands) · mt arċipelagu (group of many islands) · tr takımada (group of many islands) · nn øygard (group of many islands) · la archipelagus (group of many islands) · an archipielago (group of many islands) · sco archipelago (group of many islands) · bg архипела́г (group of many islands) · da arkipelag (group of many islands) · th หมู่เกาะ (group of many islands) · hi द्वीपसमूह (group of many islands) · fur arcipelac (group of many islands) · fi saarekas meri (sea or other body of water with many islands) · tr aral (group of many islands) · hy արշիպելագ (group of many islands) · zlw-osk archipelagum (group of many islands) · co arcipelagu (group of many islands) · lo ຫມູ່ເກາະ (group of many islands) · gu દ્વીપસમૂહ (group of many islands) · eo arĥipelago (group of many islands) · bar Archipel (group of many islands) · cs archipelag (group of many islands) · oc archipèla (group of many islands) · id kepulauan (group of many islands) · nn øygruppe (group of many islands) · vo ragipelag (group of many islands) · uk архіпела́г (group of many islands) · kmr arşîpel (group of many islands) · de Inselansammlung (group of many islands) · be архiпэля́г (group of many islands) · sc artzipèlagu (group of many islands) · ja 群島 (group of many islands) · fi saaristo (group of many islands) · vo argipelag (group of many islands) · sk súostrovie (group of many islands) · sq arkipelag (group of many islands) · nb arkipel (group of many islands) · kw enesek (group of many islands) · sl otočje (group of many islands) · fo oyggjaflokkur (group of many islands) · hu szigetcsoport (group of many islands) · ko 군도 (group of many islands) · ro arhipelag (group of many islands) · nl eilandengroep (group of many islands) · ms kepulauan (group of many islands) · ko 열도 (group of many islands) · wa årtchipel (group of many islands) · cs archipel (group of many islands) · de Archipel (group of many islands) · gv ellanragh (group of many islands)