ice

Definition

Water in frozen (solid) form.

Etymology

From Middle English hyse, hyys, ice, ijs, is, yce, ys, yys, from Old English īs, from Proto-West Germanic *īs, from Proto-Germanic *īsą (“ice”), from Proto-Indo-European *h₁eyH- (“ice, frost”). Cognates Cognate with North Frisian Iis, is (“ice”), Saterland Frisian Ies (“ice”), West Frisian iis (“ice”), Alemannic German Iis, isch, éisch (“ice”), Bavarian, Cimbrian, and Mòcheno ais (“ice”), Dutch ijs (“ice”), German Eis (“ice”), German Low German Ies (“ice”), Luxembourgish Äis (“ice”), Vilamovian ajs (“ice”), Yiddish אײַז (ayz, “ice”), Danish, Norwegian Bokmål, Norwegian Nynorsk, and Swedish is (“ice”), Elfdalian ais (“ice”), Faroese ísur (“ice”), Icelandic ís (“ice”); also Cornish yey (“ice”), yeyn (“cold”), Irish oighear (“ice”), Scottish Gaelic deigh, eigh, eighre (“ice”), Welsh iâ (“ice”), Lithuanian ýnis (“hoar frost”), Bulgarian and Russian и́ней (ínej, “hoar frost”), Czech jíní (“frost”), Macedonian and Serbo-Croatian и́ње (“hoar frost”), Ukrainian і́ній (ínij, “hoar frost, rime”), Ossetian их (ix, “ice”), Armenian եղյամ (eġyam, “frost, hoar frost, rime”), Persian یخ (yax, “ice”), Hittite 𒂊𒃷 (“ice”). Superseded non-native Middle English glace (“ice”), borrowed from Old French glace (“ice”).

Example Sentences

• "If thou doſt marry, Ile giue thee / This plague to thy dowry: / Be thou as chaſte as yce, as pure as ſnowe, / Thou ſhalt not ſcape calumny, to a Nunnery goe."
• "1882, Popular Science Monthly (volume 20), "The Freezing of a Salt Lake" It has always been difficult to explain how ice is formed on the surface of oceans while the temperature of maximum density is lower than that of cogelation, and the observations on this lake were instituted in the hope that they might throw light upon the subject."
• "Of all the transitions brought about on the Earth’s surface by temperature change, the melting of ice into water is the starkest. It is binary. And for the land beneath, the air above and the life around, it changes everything."