ice flowers

American  

noun

1. formations of ice crystals on the surface of a still, slowly freezing body of water.

2. Also called frost flowers.  delicate tufts of frost on a surface of ice or snow.

---

Etymology

Origin of ice flowers

First recorded in 1905–10

Example Sentences

At length the Christmas sun rises glowing red, and the ice flowers vanish from the windows.

From From Pole to Pole A Book for Young People by Hedin, Sven Anders

Beyond the island the snow is still very thin, barely covering the ice flowers, and the surface is still bad.

From Scott's Last Expedition Volume I by Scott, Robert Falcon

The dark, the rain, the lights, people asleep in bed, the wind, the snow that will fall tomorrow, the ice, flowers, sunlight, country roads, pavements and stars—all these are the same.

From A Thousand and One Afternoons in Chicago by Hecht, Ben

They were the most beautiful ice flowers any Snow Man could desire, but they concealed the stove.

From Hans Andersen's Fairy Tales Second Series by Andersen, H. C. (Hans Christian)

Across the smooth wind-swept ice of the open tarns they would find a growth of ice flowers, six-rayed and complicated, more abundant and more beautiful than the Alpine-524- summer flowers.

From Marriage by Wells, H. G. (Herbert George)