ice tea

20 1.3

A cold drink of tea poured over ice, often with lemon or sugar

noun
/aɪs ti/

: té helado

Miss Spruance, would you like a nice glass of iced tea?
a glass of iced tea
a pitcher of iced tea
a sip of iced tea

Examples

Iced tea was listed consistently on menus south of a line that runs through Montana and the Dakotas.

Academic text (2003)
That is a lot of iced tea.

Let There Be Light (2017)
- Can I start you off with an ice tea, coffee?

Camel Spiders (2011)
You want some ice tea?

Stay Hungry (1976)
Can I get an iced tea please? - Yeah.

Audacity (2015)
Oh, um, yeah, I'll just have an iced tea.

Trevor Moore: The Story of Our Times (2018)
Iced tea would be great.

Hell or High Water (2016)
Probably one of the best ways to come up with the most refreshing, delicious iced tea is to blend several different flavors.

Blog text (19)
Four iced teas, Todd.

Mrs. Doubtfire (1993)
Would you like a refreshing ice tea with lemon on a hot day?

Synonyms

iced tea

vsice tea

65 1.0

A cold drink of tea served with ice and sometimes sugar or lemon

is the same in meaning but written as an alternative form

sun tea

vsice tea

1 4.8

Tea left in sunlight to steep and served cold with ice

is brewed first and then chilled rather than steeped in sunlight

Surface Forms

ice tea singular

ice teas plural

iced teas plural

iced tea singular

Morphology

ice + tea

The meaning is directly and transparently derived from combining 'ice' (frozen water) with 'tea' (the beverage): it denotes tea served with ice or chilled. This compositional pattern (drink + modifier indicating coldness) is common cross-linguistically and follows ordinary English noun compounding, so a B1 learner who knows the constituents will readily infer the meaning.

Etymology

Ice tea is named for the simple idea of pouring hot tea over ice to make a cold drink, so the words ice and tea show what the drink is. That's why it means 'tea served cold over ice'.