different between archipelago vs moluccas

English

Etymology

From Italian arcipelago, formed on the basis of Ancient Greek ????- (arkhi-, “main”) + ??????? (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.

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /??k??p?l????/
• (US) IPA^(key): /???k??p?l???o?/
• Hyphenation: ar?chi?pe?la?go

Noun

archipelago (plural archipelagos or archipelagoes)

1. (collective) A group of islands.
   • 1851, Herman Melville, Moby-Dick:

     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.

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

Related terms

• archipelagic

Translations

See also

• island chain

Further reading

• archipelago on Wikipedia.Wikipedia

Portuguese

Noun

archipelago m (plural archipelagos)

1. Obsolete spelling of arquipélago (used in Portugal until September 1911 and died out in Brazil during the 1920s).