Myth & LegendGreek → English
Atlantic
/ətˈlæntɪk/adjective
Of or in the ocean between Europe, Africa and the Americas.
The Greek roots
Ἄτλας
Átlas
Atlas, the Titan
-ικός
-ikós
belonging to
Literally: “of Atlas”
The story of the word
Herodotus already calls it the Ἀτλαντὶς θάλασσα, the sea of Atlas, because it lay beyond the mountains of northwest Africa where the Titan was said to stand holding up the sky. So the ocean is named for a man's shoulders. Plato's Ἀτλαντίς, the island empire, is the same stem, and so is the atlas on your shelf: Mercator put the Titan on the title page of his 1595 collection of maps and the name stuck to the book.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → Latin → English
- First recorded
- 14th century
Same family
atlasAtlantisatlantes
In a sentence
The Atlantic crossing took six days in fair weather.
Cold Atlantic air pushed in overnight and the rain started.