ARCHIPELAGO (archipelagoes)

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

IPA (US):

Irregular inflected form: archipelagoes   

 Dictionary entry overview: What does archipelago mean? 

• ARCHIPELAGO (noun)
  The noun ARCHIPELAGO has 1 sense:

1. a group of many islands in a large body of water

  Familiarity information: ARCHIPELAGO used as a noun is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• ARCHIPELAGO (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

A group of many islands in a large body of water

Classified under:

Nouns denoting natural objects (not man-made)

Hypernyms ("archipelago" is a kind of...):

dry land; earth; ground; land; solid ground; terra firma (the solid part of the earth's surface)

Meronyms (members of "archipelago"):

island (a land mass (smaller than a continent) that is surrounded by water)

Instance hyponyms:

Shetland; Shetland Islands; Zetland (an archipelago of about 100 islands in the North Atlantic off the north coast of Scotland)

Greater Sunda Islands (a chain of islands including Borneo and Celebes and Java and Sumatra)

Lesser Sunda Islands; Nusa Tenggara (a chain of islands forming a province of Indonesia to the east of Java; includes Bali and Timor)

Bismarck Archipelago (a group of islands in the southwestern Pacific to the northeast of New Guinea; part of Papua New Guinea)

Admiralty Islands (a group of islands in the Bismarck Archipelago)

Isles of Scilly; Scilly Islands (an archipelago of small islands off the southwestern coast of England near the entrance to the English Channel; formerly a haven for smugglers and pirates)

Hebridean Islands; Hebridean Isles; Hebrides; Western Islands; Western Isles (a group of more than 500 islands off the western coast of Scotland)

Inner Hebrides (islands between the Outer Hebrides and the western coast of Scotland)

Outer Hebrides (a 130-mile long archipelago to the northwest of Scotland)

Japan; Japanese Archipelago; Japanese Islands (a string of more than 3,000 islands to the east of Asia extending 1,300 miles between the Sea of Japan and the western Pacific Ocean)

Ryukyu Islands (a chain of 55 islands in the western Pacific to the to the southwest of Japan (returned by United States to Japan in 1972))

Volcano Islands (a group of Japanese Islands in the northwestern Pacific Ocean to the north of the Marianas)

Frisian Islands (a chain of islands in the North Sea off the coast of northwestern Europe extending from the IJsselmeer to Jutland)

Orkney Islands (an archipelago of about 70 islands in the North Atlantic and North Sea off the northeastern coast of Scotland)

Sunda Islands (a chain of islands in the western Malay Archipelago)

Belau; Palau; Palau Islands; Pelew (a chain of more than 200 islands about 400 miles long in the western central Pacific Ocean)

Philippine Islands; Philippines (an archipelago in the southwestern Pacific including some 7000 islands)

Madeira Islands; Madeiras (a group of volcanic islands in the Atlantic Ocean to the west of Morocco; the group forms an autonomous region of Portugal)

Society Islands (an island group of French Polynesia in the South Pacific to the east of Samoa)

Low Archipelago; Paumotu Archipelago; Tuamotu Archipelago (a group of about 80 coral islands in French Polynesia)

Austral Islands; Tubuai Islands (a chain of small islands in French Polynesia)

Gambier Islands (a group of islands in the south central Pacific; part of French Polynesia)

Iles Marquises; Marquesas Islands (a group of volcanic islands in the south central Pacific; part of French Polynesia)

Solomon Islands; Solomons (the northernmost islands are part of Papua New Guinea; the remainder form an independent state within the British Commonwealth)

Balearic Islands (an archipelago in the western Mediterranean off the eastern coast of Spain)

Alexander Archipelago (a group of islands off southeastern Alaska)

H.I.; Hawaiian Islands; Sandwich Islands (a group of volcanic and coral islands in the central Pacific)

Aleutian Islands; Aleutians (an archipelago in the North Pacific extending southwest from Alaska)

Tierra del Fuego (an archipelago off southern South America; separated from the continent by the Strait of Magellan; islands are administered by Chile and by Argentina)

Comoro Islands; Iles Comores (three main islands and numerous islets in the Indian Ocean between Mozambique and Madagascar)

the Indies; West Indies (the string of islands between North America and South America; a popular resort area)

Antilles (a group of islands in the West Indies)

Greater Antilles (a group of islands in the western West Indies)

Caribees; Lesser Antilles (a group of islands in the southeastern West Indies)

Leeward Islands (a group of islands in the eastern West Indies)

Windward Islands; Windward Isles (a group of islands in the southeastern West Indies; the southern part of the Lesser Antilles)

Svalbard (a Norwegian archipelago in the Arctic Ocean)

Lofoten (a string of islands off the northwestern coast of Norway in the Norwegian Sea)

Aaland islands; Ahvenanmaa; Aland islands (an archipelago of some 6,000 islands in the Gulf of Bothnia under Finnish control)

Arctic Archipelago (all the islands that lie to the north of mainland Canada and the Arctic Circle)

Cape Verde Islands (a group of islands in the Atlantic off of the coast of Senegal)

Oceania; Oceanica (a large group of islands in the south Pacific including Melanesia and Micronesia and Polynesia (and sometimes Australasia and the Malay Archipelago))

Australasia (Australia, New Zealand, and neighboring islands in the South Pacific)

Austronesia (islands of central and South Pacific (Indonesia and Melanesia and Micronesia and Polynesia))

Melanesia (the islands in the southwestern part of Oceania)

Micronesia (the islands in the northwestern part of Oceania)

Ladrone Islands; Mariana Islands; Marianas (a chain of coral and volcanic islands in Micronesia (including Guam and the Northern Marianas) halfway between New Guinea and Japan; discovered by Magellan in 1521)

Caroline Islands (a long archipelago of more than 500 islands in Micronesia to the east of the Philippines)

Marshall Islands (a group of coral islands in eastern Micronesia)

Gilbert Islands (a group of islands in Micronesia to the southwest of Hawaii; formerly part of the British colony of Gilbert and Ellice Islands until it became part of the Republic of Kiribati in 1979)

Ellice Islands; Tuvalu (a group of coral islands in Micronesia to the southwest of Hawaii)

Polynesia (the islands in the eastern part of Oceania)

East India; East Indies; Malay Archipelago (a group of islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans between Asia and Australia)

Derivation:

archipelagic (relating to or part of an archipelago)

 Context examples 

An archipelago in the Baltic Sea at the entrance to the Gulf of Bothnia between Sweden and Finland.

(Aland Islands, NCI Thesaurus)

A country in southeastern Asia, comprising the archipelago and islands between the Indian Ocean and the Pacific Ocean, north of Australia.

(Indonesia, NCI Thesaurus)

A country in southeastern Asia, comprised of an archipelago between the Philippine Sea and the South China Sea, east of Vietnam.

(Philippines, NCI Thesaurus)

The expanded area, including the archipelago and its adjacent waters, is considered a sacred place for the Native Hawaiian community.

(National monument in Hawaii becomes world's largest marine protected area, NOAA)

Dukono is 1 of 78 of historically active volcanoes in the Indonesian archipelago.

(Plume from Dukono Volcano, Indonesia, The Titi Tudorancea Bulletin)

All the eighteen species of finches in the archipelago had a common ancestor, from which they evolved in the course of time due to natural selection.

(Researchers report rapid formation of new bird species in Galápagos islands, Wikinews)

An archipelago in the Indian Ocean, about one-half the way from Africa to Indonesia.

(British Indian Ocean Territory, NCI Thesaurus/CDISC)

An archipelago in the Indian Ocean, south of Africa, about one-half the way from Africa to Indonesia and south of the Maldives.

(British Indian Ocean Territory, NCI Thesaurus)

An archipelago in the Persian Gulf, on the east coast of Saudi Arabia.

(Bahrain, NCI Thesaurus)

In the 1980s the colony on Pig Island in the sub-Antarctic archipelago of Crozet, about halfway between the tip of Africa and Antarctica, was estimated to contain some two million of the flightless birds.

(Study: World's Largest King Penguin Colony Declines Sharply, VOA)