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:
When a wall of icy debris from a glacial collapse on the China-Nepal border tore through his village last week, Pemba Chhring Tamang watched the landscape he had known all his life disappear.
From Barron's ● Sep. 3, 2026
The response was icy; no state met the deadline.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 24, 2026
Known as contrails, these icy clouds contribute to climate change, and scientists have been trying to work out how to stop them.
From BBC ● Aug. 18, 2026
She was even better at playing the popular mean girl who lets her icy walls melt away to welcome in the new girl.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 17, 2026
The sides of the glacier had crumbled into piles of icy chunks.
From "The Wild Robot Protects" by Peter Brown
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
“It’s harder and icier and transforms differently with different weather,” she said.
From New York Times ● Feb. 5, 2022
His palm grew icier and icier, until—plunkl— an almost imperceptible whisper of a noise escaped from the jar, and the Owners feet dropped—clonk!—to the ground.
From "A Tangle of Knots" by Lisa Graff
"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
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
Its location, nearly 10,000 feet down in waters that are among the iciest on Earth, placed it among the most celebrated shipwrecks that had not been found.
From New York Times ● Mar. 9, 2022
She’s playful, too, lacing a dry wit through even her iciest lines.
From Washington Post ● Aug. 27, 2018
“Mr. Jackson spoke with me about the incident in the yard,” she said in her iciest voice.
From "George" by Alex Gino
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.
