Ocean

How to spell ocean

5 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce ocean

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does ocean mean?

1. nounA very large expanse of salt water, or one of the main divisions of the sea covering the earth.

Ocean in a sentence

• The cargo ship crossed the ocean in eleven days.

• Their hotel room looked straight out over the ocean.

Where does ocean come from?

Language of origin: Greek

The word comes from the Greek Okeanos, the name of the vast river that ancient Greek thinkers believed wrapped all the way around the flat disc of the earth, and also the name of the Titan god who personified that body of water. The Greek form passed into Latin as oceanus, where it broadened to mean the great outer sea beyond the Mediterranean. From Latin it travelled into Old French as occean, and English took it up in the 1300s, originally spelled in a variety of ways before settling on the modern form. The tricky 'c' that sounds like 'sh' is a fossil of that classical journey: the letter sequence 'ce' before another vowel softened in pronunciation while the spelling held onto its Greek and Latin shape. That mismatch between the spoken '-shun' and the written '-cean' is exactly what makes the word a quiet spelling trap.

How the word is built

• ocean (single root, from Greek Okeanos, the great river or sea encircling the earth)