nunatak

[nuhn-uh-tak]

noun

1. a hill or mountain that has been completely encircled by a glacier.

nunatak

/ ˈnʌnəˌtæk /

noun

1. an isolated mountain peak projecting through the surface of surrounding glacial ice and supporting a distinct fauna and flora after recession of the ice

Word History and Origins

Origin of nunatak¹

1875–80; < Inuit (West Greenlandic) nunataq

Word History and Origins

Origin of nunatak¹

C19: via Danish from Inuktitut

Example Sentences

Nunatak means the summit of a mountain that jets out from a glacier.

Read more on Fox News

Winners: 2015’s Spelling Bee champions were Vanya Shivashankar, who spelled "Scherenschnitte" correctly, and Gokul Venkatachalam, who spelled "Nunatak."

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Geoffrey Nunberg, a linguist at the University of California Berkeley, said the Bee was more of an intellectual exercise than a practical gauge of language skill since almost no one would ever use such recent Bee-winning words as “marocain,” “nunatak” and “guetapens.”

Read more on Reuters

The 2014 bee produced the first tie in more than 50 years and then, after Vanya Shivashankar and Gokul Venkatachalam shared the 2015 championship – on the winning words “scherenschnitte” and “nunatak”, respectively – the organizers tweaked the rules.

Read more on The Guardian

This story corrects the spelling of “nunatak.”

Read more on Washington Times