archipelago
Syllables: ar·chi·pel·a·goUK/ˌɑːkɪˈpɛlɪɡəʊ//ˌɑɹkəˈpɛləˌɡoʊ/
archipelago noun: preceded by the, and often in the form Archipelago: the Aegean Sea.
Noun
archipelago (plural archipelagoes or archipelagos)
- Preceded by the, and often in the form Archipelago: the Aegean Sea.
- [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...
- [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
- A sea or other body of water with many islands.
- A group of many islands.
- 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, […]...
- 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
- A thing comprising many other scattered things.
- the Gulag Archipelago
- [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
- 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
Verb
archipelago (third-person singular simple present archipelagos, present participle archipelagoing, simple past and past participle archipelagoed)
- To scatter or strew (a place, or something) with things that collectively resemble a group of many islands.
- As the seas level, as the seas / Swept into ripples by the breeze, / And archipelagoed by trees, / Majestic spreading oaks, that rise / Like island walls against the skies.1912, Samuel John Alexander, “The Regions which are Holy Land”, in The Inverted Torch, and Other Poems, San Francisco, Calif.: A. M. Robertson, →OCLC, page 183
- There is no debating that there is a Gardener whose gardens are spontaneous as a sunup, no crimson and purple clouds archipelagoing the morning skies.1924 December, William A[lfred] Quayle, “The Gardener”, in Out-of-doors with Jesus, New York, N.Y.; Cincinnati, Oh.: The Abingdon Press, →OCLC, page 196
archipelago meaning in Hindi, Tamil, Marathi and Urdu
archipelago in Hindi
- group of many islands
- द्वीप-पुंज dvīp-puñj, द्वीपसमूह dvīpsamūh
archipelago in Tamil
- group of many islands
- தீவுக்கூட்டம் tīvukkūṭṭam
archipelago in Marathi
- group of many islands
- द्वीपसमूह dvīpasmūh
archipelago in Urdu
- group of many islands
- مَجْمَعُ الْجَزائِر majmā' ul-jazāir
More languagesFewer languages
- archipelago in Bengali
- দ্বীপপুঞ্জ dippunjo
- archipelago in Telugu
- ద్వీపసమూహం dvīpasamūhaṁ
- archipelago in Malayalam
- ദ്വീപസമൂഹം dvīpasamūhaṁ
- archipelago in Kannada
- ದ್ವೀಪಸಮೂಹ dvīpasamūha
- archipelago in Punjabi
- ਟਾਪੂ-ਸਮੂਹ ṭāpū-samūh
- archipelago in Gujarati
- દ્વીપસમૂહ dvīpasmūh
- archipelago in Assamese
- দ্বীপ-পুঞ্জ dip-puñzo
- archipelago in Pashto
- مجمع الجزاير majma' oljazāyer
- archipelago in Tagalog
- kapuluan
- archipelago in Arabic
- أَرْخَبِيل ʔarḵabīl
- archipelago in Malay
- kepulauan
- archipelago in Indonesian
- kepulauan
- archipelago in Thai
- หมู่เกาะ mùu-gɔ̀
- archipelago in Vietnamese
- quần đảo
- archipelago in Myanmar
- ကျွန်းစု kywan:cu.
Examples of archipelago in a sentence
- Orkney is an archipelago of 70 or so islands lying off the northeast tip of Scotland.
- Penghu, an archipelago made up of 97 islands, is located in the middle of the Taiwan Strait.
- The Zhongsha Qundao, or Macclesfield Bank area, is actually entirely underwater, and not an archipelago, experts say.
Synonyms of archipelago
Forms of archipelago
| Noun | |
|---|---|
| plural | archipelagoes |
| plural | archipelagos |
| Verb | |
| third-person singular present | archipelagos |
| present participle | archipelagoing |
| past participle | archipelagoed |
| past | archipelagoed |
Origin of archipelago
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)
Words formed from archipelago
Phrases with archipelago
Questions about archipelago
- What does archipelago mean?
- Archipelago means preceded by the, and often in the form Archipelago: the Aegean Sea.
- What is archipelago in Hindi?
- Archipelago in Hindi is द्वीप-पुंज (dvīp-puñj), द्वीपसमूह (dvīpsamūh). See Archipelago meaning in Hindi.
- What part of speech is archipelago?
- Archipelago can be a noun or a verb.
- How do you pronounce archipelago?
- Archipelago is pronounced /ˌɑːkɪˈpɛlɪɡəʊ/ (UK).
- What is the plural of archipelago?
- The plural of archipelago is archipelagoes.
Words near archipelago in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: archipelago (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Naomi Persephone Amethyst (NaomiAmethyst)-archipelago.wav.
Cite this entry: “archipelago.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/archipelago. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.