archipelago
- A group of islands scattered across a body of water.
- More broadly, any sea containing many scattered islands.
In a sentence
- The Indonesian archipelago comprises more than seventeen thousand islands spread across the equatorial Pacific and Indian oceans.
- Sailors navigating the archipelago had to consult detailed charts to avoid the hidden reefs between the islands.
Usage note. Spelling is the main challenge: the 'ch' makes a hard /k/ sound (Greek origin), and the unstressed middle syllable '-pel-' is often swallowed in speech, leading writers to omit letters.
Where it comes from
English archipelago — “group of islands” · entered English 16th c.
From Italian 'arcipelago', recorded in English in the 16th century. The Italian word combined Greek 'arkhi-' (chief, principal) and 'pelagos' (sea), originally referring specifically to the Aegean Sea. The sense shifted from 'chief sea' to 'sea dotted with islands' as English adopted it (source: Etymonline, Oxford).