ice age

American  

[ahys ayj] / ˈaɪs ˌeɪdʒ /

noun

Geology.

• ice ages
  plural

1. a geologic period during which ice thickly covers vast masses of land.

   astronomical phenomena related to the widespread glaciation of ice ages.

2. Ice Age, the most recent of the earth’s many ice ages, occurring during the Pleistocene Epoch.

   Our familiar continents were shaped quite differently before the Ice Age.

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ice age British  

noun

1. another name for glacial period

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ice age Scientific  

1. Any of several cold periods during which glaciers covered much of the Earth.

2. Ice Age. The most recent glacial period, which occurred during the Pleistocene Epoch and ended about 10,000 years ago. During the Pleistocene Ice Age, great sheets of ice up to two miles thick covered most of Greenland, Canada, and the northern United States as well as northern Europe and Russia.

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Other Word Forms

Noun Inflected Forms

• ice ages
  plural

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Etymology

Origin of ice age

First recorded in 1870–75

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Example Sentences

See Examples For:

ice age

The spadefoot toad, or Spea labreae, is one of only two ice age amphibians to have been found in the U.S.

From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 7, 2026

Researchers in Los Angeles have made a ribbiting new discovery at the La Brea Tar Pits and Museum — an extinct amphibian from the ice age.

From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 7, 2026

This cooling came just as the planet was emerging from the last ice age and beginning to warm.

From Science Daily ● Mar. 20, 2026

Researchers at the University of Southampton have found new evidence that Earth's climate did not completely grind to a halt during its most extreme ice age, a time often called Snowball Earth.

From Science Daily ● Feb. 12, 2026

During the last million years, there has been an ice age on average every 100,000 years.

From "Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind" by Yuval Noah Harari

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