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icecap

icecap

5 3.9
A large, thick area of ice and snow that covers land, especially at the poles and on high mountains
  • noun
  • /ˈaɪsˌkæp/
translation icon : casquete polar
  • The scientists studied the melting of the icecap in Antarctica to understand climate change.
  • icecaps melt
  • polar icecaps

Examples

  • The icecaps are melting faster than a lot of people expected.

    Blog text (20)
  • Oceans would rise by about 70 meters if the far bigger icecap on Antarctica melted along with Greenland.

    Blog text (34)
  • Donald says it's the icecap melting.

    Fiction book (1993)
  • The point is that it was warmer, the Arctic icecap was gone, and the Earth did just fine.

    Blog text (9)
  • And the icecap must gradually melt, changing the ocean currents.

  • They've built a military base under the polar icecap.

  • Henceforth, his research would be done in laboratories and at computers, away from the severe conditions of the icecap.

    Fiction book (2000)
  • In this 1995 movie, global warming has caused the polar icecaps to melt, covering the entire Earth in water.

    Blog text (29)
  • Moreover, world shipping routes will be transformed by new northern sea routes made possible by the melting polar icecap; these new sea lanes will shave thousands of nautical miles and up to seven days of travel time off current routes through the Suez and Panama canals.

    Academic text (2010)
  • The ozone layer is thinning; massive climate changes threaten to melt the polar icecaps, flooding vast coastal areas and turning presently fertile agricultural areas into desert.

    Academic text (1993)

Synonyms

ice cap
vsicecap
19 3.4

A thick layer of ice and snow that always covers large land areas like the poles or mountain tops

is the same concept but written as one word
ice mass
vsicecap
  • Specialized
1 3.3

A large area of ice that forms part of a glacier or ice sheet

is a permanent surface cover of land rather than an internal ice body

How Big

icecap
5 3.9
snowfield
  • UK
2 5.5

Surface Forms

icecap singular
icecaps plural

Morphology

icecap = ice + cap (transparent) = ice + cap

The meaning can be directly inferred as 'an ice covering' from the clear components 'ice' + 'cap', so learners can readily derive the sense.

Etymology

Icecap comes from the simple parts ice and cap. A cap is like a 'hat', so an icecap is ice that 'covers' the land or a mountain like a frozen hat, which is why it means a thick, permanent mass of ice and snow over a large area.