Originally Greek for 'the chief sea' (the Aegean) — its meaning drifted from one sea to any cluster of islands.
A group or chain of islands; a sea or stretch of water containing many islands.
From Italian arcipelago, originally the proper name Arcipelago (the Aegean Sea), from Byzantine Greek Arkhipélagos (the chief sea), from Greek arkhi- (chief, principal, ruling, first) + pélagos (sea, the open sea), from PIE *pleh₂- (flat, to spread wide, to be broad). Greek arkhi- (from árkhein, to rule, to be first) gave architect (chief craftsman), archive (chief records), archetype (first pattern), monarch (sole ruler), and hierarchy (sacred rule). Greek pélagos (open sea) gave pelagic (of the open ocean), and possibly shares
The word 'archipelago' underwent a remarkable semantic shift. It originally meant 'the chief sea' — a name for the Aegean Sea, the most important sea in the Greek world. Because the Aegean is famously dotted with islands, the word gradually came to mean 'a sea full of islands,' and then 'a group of islands' — losing its reference to the sea entirely. A word that once meant a body of water now means the land