archipelagoとは意味・読み方・使い方

語源

From Italian arcipelago, formed on the basis of Ancient Greek ἀρχι- (arkhi-, “main”) + πέλαγος (pélagos, “sea”), a designation for the Aegean Sea. 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.

発音

• (Received 発音) IPA^(key): /ɑːkɪˈpɛləɡəʊ/
• (米国発音) IPA^(key): /ˌɑɹkɪˈpɛləˌɡoʊ/
• ハイフネーション: ar‧chi‧pe‧la‧go

名詞

archipelago (複数形 archipelagos または archipelagoes)

1. (now rare) The Aegean Sea.
   • 1791, Charlotte Smith, Celestina, Broadview 2004, p. 413:

     [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 […] .

2. (collective) A group of islands.
   • 1851 November 14, Herman Melville, Moby-Dick; or, The Whale, 1st American edition, New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers; London: Richard Bentley, OCLC 57395299:

     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.

3. (by extension) Something scattered around like an archipelago.

   The Gulag Archipelago

関連する語

• archipelagic