nunatak

American  

[nuhn-uh-tak] / ˈnʌn əˌtæk /

noun

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

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nunatak British  

/ 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

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Etymology

Origin of nunatak

1875–80; < Inuit (West Greenlandic) nunataq

Example Sentences

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

From Fox News

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

From Fox News

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.”

From 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.

From The Guardian

This story corrects the spelling of “nunatak.”

From Washington Times