Northwest Passage

American  

noun

1. a ship route along the Arctic coast of Canada and Alaska, joining the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans.

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Northwest Passage British  

noun

1. the passage by sea from the Atlantic to the Pacific along the N coast of America: attempted for over 300 years by Europeans seeking a short route to the Far East, before being successfully navigated by Amundsen (1903–06)

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Northwest Passage Cultural  

1. A sea route from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean through northwestern America, often sought by early explorers. There is an actual Northwest Passage, but it requires sailing through far northern waters that are icebound much of the year.

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Etymology

Origin of Northwest Passage

First recorded in 1545–55

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

Northwest Passage

Accompanied by HMS Terror, it was searching for the fabled Northwest Passage.

From BBC ● May 26, 2026

The project sits almost 120 miles north of the Arctic Circle and near the Northwest Passage, a nautical sea route through Canada’s polar region that connects the Atlantic and Pacific oceans.

From The Wall Street Journal ● May 19, 2026

The first explorer to complete the Northwest Passage solely by ship was Norwegian seafarer Roald Amundsen, from 1903 to 1906, more than 400 years after the first recorded attempt.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Nov. 30, 2025

Grays Bay is approximately in the centre of the so-called Northwest Passage, the Arctic sea route north of the Canadian mainland.

From BBC ● Jan. 5, 2025

The search for the Northwest Passage, or the attempt to explain planetary motion on the model of magnetism, were mistaken but useful.

From "The Invention of Science" by David Wootton