adjective
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made of, covered with, or containing ice
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resembling ice
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freezing or very cold
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cold or reserved in manner; aloof
Other Word Forms
Adjective Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of icy
before 900; Middle English isy, Old English īsig. See ice, -y 1
Explanation
Something that's icy is frozen like ice or covered in ice. A winter road could be icy; and, if you give someone an icy stare, they are going to feel like hitting the road. Use the adjective icy to describe your town's slippery sidewalks in the winter or the frosty peas you just removed from the freezer. You can also describe very cold conditions as icy: "I'm putting my long underwear on — it's icy out there!" When a person is icy, they are aloof and unemotional, as opposed to warm and friendly. This figurative meaning has been around since the late 1500s.
Vocabulary lists containing icy
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:
"This gives us more to use at Jupiter to carry out observations of the planet's icy moons."
From Science Daily ● Oct. 3, 2026
Rather than mixing chondrules and icy dust evenly, the young Solar System strongly favored chondrules in some of its earliest planetesimals.
From Science Daily ● Sep. 23, 2026
The kind of groove your tires make driving to Big Bear in December without chains: an icy trench filled with frustration, exhaustion and everyday sludge.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 11, 2026
The region has a coal-heavy grid and icy winters that reduce battery efficiency.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 10, 2026
The man is over six feet tall, with stark blond hair and icy blue eyes.
From "Split the Sky" by Marie Arnold
What killed in Austin drew a decidedly icier reception in Boston.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Mar. 6, 2026
But as harp seals move north to colder, icier habitats, such as off Baffin Island, they may face a new threat: polar bears.
From National Geographic ● Jan. 23, 2024
In more frigid and icier environments, they depended more on animals and fish.
From Textbooks ● Apr. 19, 2023
She encountered an even icier reception from Reasoner, her co-anchor.
From Los Angeles Times ● Dec. 30, 2022
Even packed together in the wagon, with woolen blankets to our noses, we are certain to be icier than the inside of Logan's icehouse!
From "Hattie Big Sky" by Kirby Larson
"That day will come as surely as spring comes after even the iciest of winters," he insisted from the dock, addressing anyone who might hear, against all the odds.
From BBC ● Apr. 21, 2023
Across the world’s iciest regions, communities live with the looming threat of inland tsunamis — massive walls of water moving quickly and forcefully from melting glaciers, known as glacial lake outburst floods.
From Washington Post ● Feb. 7, 2023
But it also dragged on for about 30,000 years—long enough time for substantial portions of the world’s iciest places to melt away.
From Scientific American ● Dec. 20, 2022
Within a cast of cadaver-cold characters, Marcos is the iciest.
From New York Times ● Aug. 4, 2020
I shot Mom the iciest look I could give.
From "The First Rule of Punk" by Celia C. Pérez
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.
