ice jam


noun
  1. an obstruction of broken river ice in a narrow part of a channel.

  2. a mass of lake or sea ice broken and piled up against the shore by wind pressure.

Origin of ice jam

1
First recorded in 1840–50

Words Nearby ice jam

Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023

How to use ice jam in a sentence

  • Toward the end of the day they were stopped by a small ice-jam which moved forward slowly only to stop them again.

  • Just beyond this, a higher and stronger palisade protected the riverbank from the winter ice jam.

    On the Edge of the Arctic | Harry Lincoln Sayler
  • Midsummer's Day and the two following days we were stuck in a heavy ice-jam one hundred miles south of St. Anthony.

    A Labrador Doctor | Wilfred Thomason Grenfell
  • The great ice jam had parted from Rolfe's Island and was swinging out into the open, pushing everything before it.

    Homespun Tales | Kate Douglas Wiggin
  • She didn't catch the wind o' that, lad, till we were navigating our raft downstream agen the ice-jam.

    Heralds of Empire | Agnes C. Laut