freezer
Americannoun
-
freezers
plural
-
a refrigerator, refrigerator compartment, cabinet, or room held at or below 32°F (0°C), used especially for preserving and storing food.
-
a machine containing cold brine, ice, etc., for making ice cream, sherbet, or the like.
-
a person or thing that freezes or chills.
noun
-
Also called: deepfreeze. a device that freezes or chills, esp an insulated cold-storage cabinet for long-term storage of perishable foodstuffs
-
a former name for refrigerator
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of freezer
Explanation
A freezer is an appliance that keeps food frozen at extremely low temperatures. A household freezer is usually built into a refrigerator. It's where you keep your ice cream and ice cubes. The freezer is where you keep ice cubes and frozen peas — it's a compartment at the top (or bottom) of the refrigerator in your kitchen. Larger freezers are used to keep enough food for a long period of time, or so a restaurant, hotel, or school cafeteria can store leftover food or keep enough to cook for a crowd of people. The word freezer was coined in 1847, although it originally meant part of an ice cream maker.
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
Some supermarket staff reportedly said they were hit by waves of hot air when they opened freezer units on Monday morning.
From BBC ● Oct. 12, 2026
A couple in Los Angeles keeps it in the back of their freezer just in case.
From Salon ● Sep. 26, 2026
She also advises residents to preemptively store important original documents in a sealed and labeled ziplock bag inside the freezer.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 22, 2026
If you have, you probably know a kid who’s obsessed with them—and now your freezer is full of them.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 5, 2026
It was Dee who found me in the walk-in freezer.
From "Ask the Passengers" by A.S. King
Recycling company Unimetals, which had dozens of sites in the UK, filed for liquidation in 2025 leaving tens of thousands of fridge freezers at Newport Docks.
From BBC ● Sep. 19, 2026
The melt-in-your-mouth meat is now a fixture at fine-dining restaurants and in Costco freezers.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 24, 2026
Hearing board members echoed fears from the community about the potential release of ammonia, a flammable and highly toxic gas that was used as a refrigerant for Lineage’s freezers.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 6, 2026
It's a mammoth task: The vast majority of the city's 20,500 licensed food carts -- selling pretzels, peanuts and ice cream -- rely on generators to power stoves, freezers and ventilators.
From Barron's ● Jul. 25, 2026
“Don’t worry,” Christoph yelled, “it’s not dangerous, it’s just cold. They’re not minus twenty Celsius like your freezers at home, they’re minus eighty. That’s why when I open them smoke comes out.”
From "The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks" by Rebecca Skloot
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
