freezer
Americannoun
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freezers
plural
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a refrigerator, refrigerator compartment, cabinet, or room held at or below 32°F (0°C), used especially for preserving and storing food.
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a machine containing cold brine, ice, etc., for making ice cream, sherbet, or the like.
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a person or thing that freezes or chills.
noun
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Also called: deepfreeze. a device that freezes or chills, esp an insulated cold-storage cabinet for long-term storage of perishable foodstuffs
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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:
Then I immediately go home and slice them in half and wrap them in cling wrap and put them in an airtight Ziploc baggie and throw them in the freezer.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 20, 2026
Treatment includes washing all bedding, clothing, and household materials like curtains on a hot wash and tumble dry, or they can be put in plastic bags in a freezer for three or four days.
From BBC ● Oct. 12, 2026
New York influencer Christine Han bought eight Bordier blocks—along with a freezer bag and ice pack—after tasting the butter at a Parisian restaurant.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 23, 2026
Except my little freezer stash of homemade breakfast burritos had also dwindled to nothing, and I knew exactly what Monday morning would look like without some intervention: Wake up.
From Salon ● Sep. 22, 2026
As Jenner had predicted, there was a big freezer, well stocked—bread, meat, vegetables, everything—and a whole room full of shelves covered with canned food.
From "Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH" by Robert C. O'Brien
A bank of white freezers hums away at a former watch factory in central London.
From BBC ● Oct. 28, 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
He went to the freezers, and got out vials of frozen blood serum from three people.
From "The Hot Zone" by Richard Preston
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Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
