archipelago
noun
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The Greeks called it the Aegean Pelagos and the Italians referred to it as Arcipelago (meaning "chief sea"), but English speakers now call it the Aegean Sea. Numerous islands dot its expanse, and 16th-century English speakers adopted a modified form of its Italian name for any sea with a similar scattering of islands. In time, archipelago came to refer to the groups of islands themselves, and now it is often used figuratively, as in, for example, "an archipelago of high-rise buildings."
Examples of archipelago in a Sentence
Andrew Nelson, USA TODAY, 18 Apr. 2024
Today, only 8,000 people reside in the Aleutians; about half occupy remote villages scattered throughout the archipelago.
—Susan Portnoy, Travel + Leisure, 29 Mar. 2024
The remote archipelago is throwing off a troubled colonial past to tell new stories.
—Catherine Fairweather, Condé Nast Traveler, 20 Mar. 2024
Indigenous mythology names symbolic caves as the great cosmic incubators, giving birth to the moon, the sun and the archipelago’s first people.
—Carina Del Valle Schorske, New York Times, 20 Mar. 2024
Some of the spots are known — but others could be considered secret gems, tucked along the the 120-mile archipelago.
—Emma Janssen, Miami Herald, 23 Feb. 2024
The Maldives is an archipelago made up of over 1,000 islands sitting mere feet above sea level, which means the country is 99% ocean.
—Kathleen Wong, USA TODAY, 7 Apr. 2024
The pandemic lockdown in Japan coincided with a flurry of new hotels, especially in Kyoto, where the Park Hyatt, Aman and Four Seasons were joined by a group of independent properties and the first Ace hotel in the archipelago.
—John Wogan, New York Times, 1 Apr. 2024
The archipelago’s beauty spots feature heavily in promotional campaigns aimed at attracting more overseas visitors.
—Kathleen Magramo, CNN, 21 Mar. 2024
These examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'archipelago.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.
Dictionary Entries Near archipelago
Cite this Entry
“Archipelago.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/archipelago. Accessed 26 Apr. 2024.
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archipelago
noun
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