Oceanic

How to spell oceanic

7 letters · 4 syllables

How to pronounce oceanic

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does oceanic mean?

1. adjectiveRelating to, found in, or characteristic of the ocean.

Oceanic in a sentence

• The research vessel collected oceanic samples from deep below the surface.

• Warming oceanic currents are altering weather patterns along the coast.

Where does oceanic come from?

Language of origin: Greek

This word traces back to the Greek Okeanos, the name of the vast river that the ancient Greeks believed encircled the entire flat earth, and which was also personified as a Titan, a son of the sky and the earth. The Greeks used the related noun for the great outer sea beyond the Mediterranean, and Latin took it up as oceanus with the same sense. English received 'ocean' through Old French during the 1300s, and the adjective 'oceanic' was formed later, around the 1650s, by adding the familiar Latin-derived suffix -ic, meaning 'relating to'. A useful spelling reminder is that the tricky 'ce' in the middle is simply the soft 'c' of 'ocean' carried over unchanged, so if you can spell 'ocean', the adjective only adds -ic. The mythological Okeanos still survives elsewhere too, lending its name to the planet Oceania and to the scientific field of oceanography.

How the word is built

• ocean (from Greek Okeanos, the great encircling sea)
• -ic (adjective suffix meaning 'relating to')