Transpacific

Part of speech: adjective

Definitions

1. Extending across or traversing the vast Pacific Ocean, especially in reference to travel, trade or routes between the Americas and Asia
2. Relating to something that crosses the Pacific, such as flights, shipping lanes or trade agreements linking the Americas with Asia and Oceania
3. Describing a connection, journey or relationship that spans the width of the Pacific Ocean between its eastern and western shores

Etymology: The word is a plain compound: the Latin prefix "trans-", meaning "across" or "beyond", attached to "Pacific". Its literal sense is "across the Pacific," which is what it still means: relating to the region or travel on the far side of the Pacific Ocean, or crossing it. The Pacific itself takes its name from Ferdinand Magellan's voyage, which the sea's calm waters are said to have inspired, though that naming is a separate story from this word. The prefix "trans-" comes to English from Latin, where it was used in countless words such as "transatlantic" and "transcontinental," which were formed the same way. The source tree traces it back through Proto-Italic to an older Indo-European root, but for a word of this kind the useful fact is simply that English speakers attached "trans-" to a place name whenever they needed to describe something spanning a particular sea or continent.