Pacific Ocean

[ puh-sif-ik oh-shuhn ]

noun

1. the largest of the world’s five principal oceans, bordered by the American continents, Asia, and Australia, with its deepest section in the Mariana Trench: divided by the equator into the North Pacific Ocean and the South Pacific Ocean. 62,455,900 square miles (161,760,000 square kilometers).

Pacific Ocean

noun

1. the world's largest and deepest ocean, lying between Asia and Australia and North and South America: almost landlocked in the north, linked with the Arctic Ocean only by the Bering Strait, and extending to Antarctica in the south; has exceptionally deep trenches, and a large number of volcanic and coral islands. Area: about 165 760 000 sq km (64 000 000 sq miles). Average depth: 4215 m (14 050 ft). Greatest depth: Challenger Deep (in the Marianas Trench), 11 033 m (37 073 ft). Greatest width: (between Panama and Mindanao, Philippines) 17 066 km (10 600 miles)

Pacific Ocean

1. The largest ocean in the world, separating Asia and Australia on the west from North America and South America on the east.

Word History and Origins

Origin of Pacific Ocean¹

First recorded in 1560–70

Example Sentences

Pacific Ocean Since 2017, a zone of high pressure has often set up off the East Coast.

From Washington Post

Starting with a 410-gram sample of Pacific Ocean crust, Wallner and colleagues used a particle accelerator to separate and count atoms.

From Science News

Fairy wrasses appear to have first evolved in the Coral Triangle, a region of exceptionally high coral reef biodiversity in the western Pacific Ocean.

From Science News

Before colonizers took their land away, they sourced their own food from plants, hunting in the island’s jungles, and fishing in the vast Pacific Ocean that is now tainted with military and industrial activities.

From Vox

A high-pressure system parked over the eastern Pacific Ocean held smoke close to the ground above all major Oregon fires, grounding much of the Air Attack and Tactical fleet in the state.

From Popular-Science

This star-studded locale is Malibu Colony, a private stretch of around 100 homes sitting side by side on the Pacific Ocean.

From The Daily Beast

The Tsars used them to push the frontiers of Russia southwards and east, through Siberia and as far as the Pacific Ocean.

From The Daily Beast

As we speak, container ships full of toys, electronics, and clothing are chugging their way across the Pacific Ocean.

From The Daily Beast

But there used to be more of a focus on the big ideas too—Should America make its way to the Pacific Ocean?

From The Daily Beast

But he no more knew of the places named for him than he did of the Pacific Ocean or of distant planets.

From The Daily Beast

For the whole Pacific Ocean appeared to be heaving out its chest and coming on, eighty feet high.

From Project Gutenberg

Not so very long ago Halstead commanded a yacht on the Pacific Ocean, and had some of his most rousing adventures at that time.

From Project Gutenberg

Hearing the savages tell of a great river flowing southward, he fancied that it must empty into the Pacific Ocean.

From Project Gutenberg

We have now to cross this, for our faces are set towards the Pacific Ocean.

From Project Gutenberg

In the middle of the Pacific Ocean, and hardly a ripple on the waves!

From Project Gutenberg