ice sheet

noun

a broad, thick sheet of ice covering an extensive area for a long period of time.

a glacier covering a large fraction of a continent.

Words nearby ice sheet

ice rain, ice rampart, ice road, ice run, ice screw, ice sheet, ice shelf, ice show, ice skate, ice station, ice storm

Origin of ice sheet

First recorded in 1870–75

Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2020

Examples from the Web for ice sheet

Underneath the ice-sheet the stones, sand, and clay behaved in the same way.
Fragments of Earth Lore|James Geikie
This was before the ice-sheet melted backward toward the pole.
The Jacket (The Star-Rover)|Jack London
The structure of the iceberg varies with its origin and is always that of the glacier or ice-sheet from which it was broken.
Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 14, Slice 2|Various
When the ice-sheet vanished away, it left the ground covered thickly in many places with its various deposits.
Fragments of Earth Lore|James Geikie

From Stockholm one looked back on it as though it were an ice-sheet, and so had Stockholm watched it for centuries.
The Education of Henry Adams|Henry Adams

British Dictionary definitions for ice sheet

ice sheet

noun

a thick layer of ice covering a large area of land for a long time, esp those in Antarctica and Greenland

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

Scientific definitions for ice sheet

ice sheet

A large sheet of ice and snow that covers an entire region and spreads out under its own weight. Ice sheets have an area of more than 50,000 square km (19,500 square mi). Compare icecap.