The Collaborative International Dictionary
pacific \pa*cif"ic\, a. [L. pacificus: cf. F. pacifique. See Pacify.] Of or pertaining to peace; of a peaceful character; not warlike; not quarrelsome; as, a pacific nature or condition.
Syn: peaceable.
2. Promoting peace; suited to make or restore peace; conciliatory; as, pacific words or acts. [WordNet sense 1]
Syn: irenic.
3. of or pertaining to the Pacific Ocean; as, Pacific islands.
Pacific Ocean, the ocean between America and Asia, so called by Magellan, its first European navigator, on account of the exemption from violent tempests which he enjoyed while sailing over it; -- called also, simply, the Pacific, and, formerly, the South sea.
Syn: Peacemaking; appeasing; conciliatory; tranquil; calm; quiet; peaceful; reconciling; mild; gentle.
Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
1660, from Medieval Latin Pacificum, neuter of Latin pacificus (see pacific); so called c.1500 by Magellan when he sailed into it and found it calmer than the stormy Atlantic.
Wiktionary
n. The world's largest body of water, to the east of Asia and Australasia and to the west of the Americas.
Wikipedia
The Pacific Ocean is the largest of the Earth's oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean (or, depending on definition, to Antarctica) in the south and is bounded by Asia and Australia in the west and the Americas in the east.
At 165.25 million square kilometers (63.8 million square miles) in area, this largest division of the World Ocean—and, in turn, the hydrosphere—covers about 46% of the Earth's water surface and about one-third of its total surface area, making it larger than all of the Earth's land area combined.
The equator subdivides it into the North Pacific Ocean and South Pacific Ocean, with two exceptions: the Galápagos and Gilbert Islands, while straddling the equator, are deemed wholly within the South Pacific. The Mariana Trench in the western North Pacific is the deepest point in the world, reaching a depth of .
Though the peoples of Asia and Oceania have travelled the Pacific Ocean since prehistoric times, the eastern Pacific was first sighted by Europeans in the early 16th century when Spanish explorer Vasco Núñez de Balboa crossed the Isthmus of Panama in 1513 and discovered the great "southern sea" which he named Mar del Sur. The ocean's current name was coined by Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan during the Spanish circumnavigation of the world in 1521, as he encountered favourable winds on reaching the ocean. He called it Mar Pacífico, which in both Portuguese and Spanish means "peaceful sea".
Usage examples of "pacific ocean".
He set his elbows on the edge of the table and peered at the strange-looking contours that represented the floor of the Pacific Ocean.
He broke off, turned, and jerked down a wall map of the North Pacific Ocean.
We won the start but were soon passed by other boats as we worked our way out to the mouth of the Strait of Juan de Fuca, and then into the Pacific Ocean.
Then we will return with any who may wish to follow us to colonize it definitely, and endow the American Republic with a useful station in this part of the Pacific Ocean!
If the direction has been maintained from the northeast to the southwest, we have traversed the States of North Carolina, of South Carolina, of Georgia, the Gulf of Mexico, Mexico, itself, in its narrow part, then a part of the Pacific Ocean.
Islands throughout the Pacific Ocean vanished, while others emerged for the first time.
The United States Navy submarine Starbuck is lost in the Pacific Ocean north of Hawaii, and though an exhaustive search is mounted, no trace of the wreckage is located.
It pauses for a moment and flicks its tongue towards the Imperial Marine who is now hobbling into the Pacific Ocean some fifty feet distant.
He had to pass through one of several straits to reenter the Pacific Ocean, all of them about as busy as Times Square at noon.
As Nagumo had once sneaked up on Pearl Harbor, could the enemy not have sneaked several new carriers into the Pacific Ocean?
It was more than reasonable to presume that anyone who had acquired 1,200 hours in a PBY-5A, most of it in the left seat flying over the Pacific Ocean, knew how to navigate.