Last week, my family and I went on a relaxing vacation to beautiful Monterey, California. Monterey, a small seaside city on the central coast of California, is one of my favorite places to visit because of the mild weather and beautiful beaches. My sister and I love to stroll on the beach and hunt for sea glass that washes up from the Pacific Ocean.
The Pacific Ocean is the biggest ocean on Earth, covering 59 million square miles and containing more than half of the free water on Earth. The Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan is responsible for naming this large body of water in 1520. Because of the calmness of the water, he named the newfound ocean “pacific.”
Pacific comes from the Latin root word pac- meaning peace or calm . The Latin suffix -fic means to make or do. The word “pacific” literally means “to make peaceful.” The word “pacific” is both a noun and an adjective. As a noun, the word refers to the “Pacific Ocean,” but when used as an adjective it means calm or tranquil.
the word explorer 