Barents

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. The Arctic sea lying north of Norway and Russia ; the sixteenth-century Dutch navigator who searched for a northern sea route
2. A cold northern ocean bordered by Norway and Russia ; a Dutch seafarer of the 1500s who explored the Arctic and sought a northeast passage
3. The Arctic sea between Scandinavia and Russia's northern coast ; a Dutch explorer from the late sixteenth century known for Arctic voyages

Etymology: The Barents Sea is named after Willem Barentsz, a Dutch navigator whose ships were trapped in ice off Novaya Zemlya during his third Arctic voyage of 1596 to 1597. He and his crew spent the winter there, building a shelter from driftwood and surviving on the ship's stores, and Barentsz died on the return journey in June 1597, near the island that now bears his name. Dutch navigators and mapmakers subsequently recorded the body of water he had explored, and the name eventually settled on the sea. The word is therefore a proper noun formed from the surname "Barentsz," meaning "son of Barent," a Dutch patronymic built on the personal name Barend, a form of Bernard. English uses "Barents" as the standard spelling of the name in geographic contexts, while the Dutch spelling keeps the "-sz" ending. The sea is part of the Arctic Ocean, lying between Norway, Russia's Arctic coast, Svalbard and Novaya Zemlya.