Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- noun Water frozen solid.
- noun A surface, layer, or mass of frozen water.
- noun Something resembling frozen water.
- noun A frozen dessert consisting of water, sugar, and a liquid flavoring, often fruit juice.
- noun Cake frosting; icing.
- noun Slang Diamonds.
- noun Sports The playing field in ice hockey; the rink.
- noun Extreme unfriendliness or reserve.
- noun Slang A payment over the listed price of a ticket for a public event.
- noun Slang Methamphetamine.
- intransitive verb To coat or slick with solidly frozen water.
- intransitive verb To cause to become ice; freeze.
- intransitive verb To chill by setting in or as if in ice.
- intransitive verb To cover or decorate (a cake, for example) with a sugar coating.
- intransitive verb Slang To ensure of victory, as in a game; clinch.
- intransitive verb Sports To shoot (the puck) from one's defensive half of an ice hockey rink across the opponent's goal line outside of the goal.
- intransitive verb Slang To kill; murder.
- intransitive verb To turn into or become coated with ice; freeze.
- idiom (on ice) Assured of attainment or success.
- idiom (on ice) In reserve or readiness.
- idiom (on ice) Away from public notice or activity.
- idiom (on thin ice) In a precarious position.
from The Century Dictionary.
- To cover with ice; convert into ice; freeze.
- To apply ice to; refrigerate; preserve in ice, as meat.
- To cover with concreted sugar; frost.
- A particular form (including the stem-vowel -i-) of the termination -ce, of Latin origin, as in avarice, justice, malice, notice, service, novice, etc.; also in words of later formation, as in
cowardice . In practice the termination is historically a feminine form of -ic. - noun The solid form of water, produced by freezing.
- noun Same as
icing . - noun A frozen confection consisting
- noun of sweetened and flavored cream, milk, or custard (cream-ice, ice-cream), or
- noun of the sweetened juice of various fruits (water-ice).
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- noun Water or other fluid frozen or reduced to the solid state by cold; frozen water. It is a white or transparent colorless substance, crystalline, brittle, and viscoidal. Its specific gravity (0.92, that of water at 4° C. being 1.0) being less than that of water, ice floats.
- noun Concreted sugar.
- noun Water, cream, custard, etc., sweetened, flavored, and artificially frozen.
- noun Any substance having the appearance of ice.
- noun ice which sometimes forms about stones and other objects at the bottom of running or other water, and is thus attached or
anchored to the ground. - noun ice formed in bays, fiords, etc., often in extensive fields which drift out to sea.
- noun anchor ice.
- noun (Geol.) the glacial epoch or period. See under
Glacial . - noun (Naut.) a grapnel for mooring a vessel to a field of ice.
- noun a streak of whiteness of the horizon, caused by the reflection of light from ice not yet in sight.
- noun A strong steamboat for breaking a channel through ice.
- noun a box for holding ice; a box in which things are kept cool by means of ice; a refrigerator.
- noun [Poetic] a brook or stream as cold as ice.
- noun cream, milk, or custard, sweetened, flavored, and frozen.
- noun an extensive sheet of ice.
- noun a sheet of floating ice similar to an ice field, but smaller.
- noun shore ice in Arctic regions; an ice belt.
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
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Help support Wordnik (and make this page ad-free) by adopting the word ice.
Examples
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After much persuasion, I went on the ice myself; though not without considerable fear; yet such a favourite sport is this with the English, and so infatuated are some of these _ice players_, that nothing will deter them from venturing on those places which are marked as dangerous; and thus many perish, like moths that sacrifice themselves in the candle flame.
Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 54, No. 337, November, 1843 Various
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If a substantial layer of ice is expected to accumulate from the freezing rain, an _ice storm_ is forecast.
In Time of Emergency A Citizen's Handbook on Nuclear Attack, Natural Disasters (1968) United States. Office of Civil Defense
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Neither do I think moraines of this kind would be formed by a glacier emerging from a steep narrow canyon and running out on a level plain; for in such cases, as soon as the confinement of the bounding walls is removed, the ice stream spreads out into an _ice lake_.
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Lowther Island being covered with _broken packed ice, half-frozen sludge, and young ice_.
Stray Leaves from an Arctic Journal; or, Eighteen Months in the Polar Regions, in Search of Sir John Franklin's Expedition, in the Years 1850-51 Sherard Osborn 1848
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Add everything except the champagne and stir briefly with ice; strain into a punch bowl filled with lemon ice** and add chilled champagne.
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Add everything except the champagne and stir briefly with ice; strain into a punch bowl filled with lemon ice** and add chilled champagne.
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We chose the band name because I was so adamant against the name 'ice cream.'
Jon Chattman: Sound Bites: Finland's Rubik and fun. Jon Chattman 2011
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We chose the band name because I was so adamant against the name 'ice cream.'
Jon Chattman: Sound Bites: Finland's Rubik and fun. Jon Chattman 2011
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It always seemed that there was a place to cross somewhere and even though it involved at times crossing very thin ice - salt water ice is different from fresh water ice in that when it's thin, it's quite rubbery, almost like wet cardboard - and it will bend when you walk on it.
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However, measuring the thickness of the ice is a different issue.
European Scientist Finally Ready to Launch Ice Measuring Satellite | Inhabitat 2010
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Here, waves tossed the ice around — grinding it into round plates called pancake ice or pushing thin sheets on top of one another to create an interlocking pattern, a phenomenon known as finger rafting.
Arctic Ice Feedback Loops Will Guide the Climate’s Future Shannon Hall 2020
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Over three weeks in 2019, Kaefer spent time at three English-speaking Antarctic stations observing and gathering data from workers based on what the US station refers to as “The Ice”, or the British call the “South”.
Fidlets, fingies and riding a doo: study sheds light on Antarctic English slang Eva Corlett 2024
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The ice that is seen floating on the ocean’s surface comes from one of two sources. Glacial ice is formed from the accumulation and compression of snow into glaciers, that then break apart and release ice to the ocean. Because glaciers can be several kilometers thick the icebergs that break off of them can be very large; so the tall icebergs at sea always come from glacial ice sheets. Sea ice refers to the ice formed from the freezing of sea water, and rarely exceeds a thickness of several meters (Figure 14.1.1). Sea ice covers about 7% of the ocean at any time, and makes up about 66% of the Earth’s permanent ice cover by area, but only 0.1% of the ice in terms of volume. This is because sea ice is a vast but thin sheet of cover compared to the glacial ice caps that are more localized but may be several kilometers thick.
14.1 Types of Ice 2025
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The ice that is seen floating on the ocean’s surface comes from one of two sources. Glacial ice is formed from the accumulation and compression of snow into glaciers, that then break apart and release ice to the ocean. Because glaciers can be several kilometers thick the icebergs that break off of them can be very large; so the tall icebergs at sea always come from glacial ice sheets. Sea ice refers to the ice formed from the freezing of sea water, and rarely exceeds a thickness of several meters (Figure 14.1.1). Sea ice covers about 7% of the ocean at any time, and makes up about 66% of the Earth’s permanent ice cover by area, but only 0.1% of the ice in terms of volume. This is because sea ice is a vast but thin sheet of cover compared to the glacial ice caps that are more localized but may be several kilometers thick.
14.1 Types of Ice 2025
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Wave action can break up the nilas into small mats 1-2 m across, which then bump into each other and form rounded shapes with raised edges, called pancake ice (Figure 14.1.2 C). If temperatures remain cold the pancake ice freezes together into solid ice floes, a hard surface covering the ocean (Figure 14.1.2 D). Ice floes then freeze together into ice fields.
14.1 Types of Ice 2025
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When the large sheets of sea ice are formed, they exist in one of two formations. Fast ice, or land-fast ice, refers to the large, solid ice sheets that are attached to land. The pack ice consists of the smaller, free-floating pieces of sea ice. They may have formed independently, or may have broken off from the fast ice (Figure 14.1.3).
14.1 Types of Ice 2025
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Wave action can break up the nilas into small mats 1-2 m across, which then bump into each other and form rounded shapes with raised edges, called pancake ice (Figure 14.1.2 C). If temperatures remain cold the pancake ice freezes together into solid ice floes, a hard surface covering the ocean (Figure 14.1.2 D). Ice floes then freeze together into ice fields.
14.1 Types of Ice 2025
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Because of the salt content, seawater begins to freeze at about –1.8o C, a lower temperature than for fresh water. Ice formation begins at the surface with the formation of small needle-like ice crystals called frazil, which accumulate and make the water appear slushy and cloudy; this stage is referred to as grease ice (Figure 14.1.2 A). In calmer water these small crystals can freeze together into a thin surface layer called nilas, which can reach a thickness of up to 10 cm (Figure 14.1.2 B).
14.1 Types of Ice 2025
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Wave action can break up the nilas into small mats 1-2 m across, which then bump into each other and form rounded shapes with raised edges, called pancake ice (Figure 14.1.2 C). If temperatures remain cold the pancake ice freezes together into solid ice floes, a hard surface covering the ocean (Figure 14.1.2 D). Ice floes then freeze together into ice fields.
14.1 Types of Ice 2025
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When the large sheets of sea ice are formed, they exist in one of two formations. Fast ice, or land-fast ice, refers to the large, solid ice sheets that are attached to land. The pack ice consists of the smaller, free-floating pieces of sea ice. They may have formed independently, or may have broken off from the fast ice (Figure 14.1.3).
14.1 Types of Ice 2025
yarb commented on the word ice
As a verb, to put an end to or kill off.
"James hit a driving layup in the second overtime with 26 seconds left and added a pair of free throws with 14 seconds to play which iced the game" - Vancouver Sun, 1-10-08
January 11, 2008
chained_bear commented on the word ice
"Ice was also finally beginning to be used as a preservative. In 1785, Alexander Dalrymple of the East India Company described the ancient Chinese practice of packing fresh fish in ice and the penny dropped. His friend George Dempster passed the information on to his Scottish fish merchant; the Scottish fishing industry was transformed, and fresh salmon was despatched countrywide, safely and without the need for salt or pickle."
--Kate Colquhoun, Taste: The Story of Britain Through Its Cooking (NY: Bloomsbury, 2007), 270
(this was about 1812--no specific date given)
January 18, 2017