Pantropical

Part of speech: adjective

Definitions

1. Found throughout tropical areas around the globe, spanning multiple continents and oceans in warm latitudes
2. Distributed across all or most of the world's tropical zones rather than limited to a single region
3. Occurring in tropical environments across the planet rather than being restricted to one particular area

Etymology: "Pantropical" is a plain modern compound: the Greek prefix "pan-", meaning "all" (from "pân", the genitive-stem form of "pas", "all, every"), attached to "tropical." Together they describe something found throughout the tropics, the belt of the world lying between the Tropic of Cancer and the Tropic of Capricorn. "Tropical" itself traces back to the Greek "tropikos," relating to a turning, from "tropē," meaning "a turn." The tropics are named for the points where the sun appears to turn back on its apparent path across the sky at the solstices. English "tropical" arrived through Latin and Old French, and the Latin-derived "-al" ending, which made adjectives out of nouns, is what gives it its familiar shape. Because "pantropical" is built straightforwardly from existing parts, the word needed no single inventor, and it is used mainly in biology and ecology, where it describes a species or plant found across tropical regions of the world on more than one continent.