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
Stephanie Pearson, Travel + Leisure, 25 June 2024
The oil-rich country, which has supported Ukraine, also houses the Global Seed Vault in its Svalbard archipelago, some 1,300 kilometers (800 miles) from the North Pole.
—Will Daniel, Fortune, 25 June 2024
Made up of five archipelagoes and 118 islands, nearly half of them uninhabited, this pinch-me place is a popular setting for screensaver graphics and wall calendars.
—David Dickstein, Orange County Register, 13 June 2024
The new species was found off Grand Bahama Island, one of the northernmost islands in the archipelago nation of the Bahamas off the east coast of Florida.
—Irene Wright, Miami Herald, 6 June 2024
See all Example Sentences for archipelago 
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.
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“Archipelago.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/archipelago. Accessed 7 Jul. 2024.
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archipelago
noun
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