icecap
Americannoun
noun
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A dome-shaped body of ice and snow that covers a mountain peak or a large area and spreads out under its own weight. Ice caps have an area of less than 50,000 square km (19,500 square mi).
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Compare ice sheet
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A polar cap.
Etymology
Origin of icecap
Explanation
An icecap is a type of glacier. It’s a large, permanent mass of ice that is so big it’s like a cap for the Earth. An icecap usually forms on a mountain and then slopes down the sides. While icecaps are considered to be permanent features, they do change in size, growing and shrinking over time. Earth isn’t the only planet with icecaps — Mars has them, too. An icecap is smaller than 50,000 kilometers and an ice sheet is bigger. So the Earth’s polar icecaps are technically ice sheets but they’re referred to as icecaps. The melting of these and the many smaller icecaps is a serious problem — as they melt, sea levels rise.
Vocabulary lists containing icecap
Physical Geography - Middle School
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Physical Geography - High School
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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.
We dug deep channels into the icecap and ran hundreds of meters worth of cable, we used chainsaws to cut blocks of ice that had encased the station's pillar supports.
From Salon • May 29, 2023
Many natural processes can provide this tiny increment of stress, including the movement of plate tectonics, a melting icecap, and even human activities.
From Salon • Feb. 24, 2017
To hazards like icecap cracks, nuclear leaks and rising seas, add another environmental threat: language fallout.
From New York Times • Feb. 9, 2017
Fifty times as big as Denmark, which has ruled it since 1721, it is 85% covered by an icecap up to two miles thick.
From Time Magazine Archive
The polar icecap had made Antarctica a frozen desert.
From "Shipwreck at the Bottom of the World" by Jennifer Armstrong
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.
