pack ice

noun

1. a large area of floating ice formed over a period of many years and consisting of pieces of ice driven together by wind, current, etc.

pack ice

noun

1. a large area of floating ice, usually occurring in polar seas, consisting of separate pieces that have become massed together Also calledice pack

pack ice

/ păk /

1. The floating sea-ice cover of the polar regions. Driven by winds and ocean currents, pack ice is a mixture of ice fragments of varying size and age that are squeezed together and cover the sea surface with little or no open water. At maximum expansion during the winter, pack ice covers about five percent of Arctic waters and about eight percent of Antarctic waters.

Word History and Origins

Origin of pack ice¹

First recorded in 1840–50

Example Sentences

Instead, the large chunks—the biggest of which are comparable in size to the area of Alaska—look like they’re jostling together, bumping and sliding against each other like pack ice in the Arctic Ocean.

From Popular-Science

These blocks, each about the size of Alaska, seem to have been sluggishly jostling against each other like broken pack ice on a pond or lake.

From MIT Technology Review

His groundbreaking interventions aboard the Belgica, a Belgian ship stuck fast in the pack ice for more than a year, saved many lives and prefigured established medical science by several decades.

From Time

Field ice is a term usually applied to frozen sea water floating in much looser form than pack ice.

From Project Gutenberg

To the north, pack-ice in variable amount is encountered before reaching the wide open ocean.

From Project Gutenberg

Towards evening the 'Aurora' turned back to open water and cruised along the pack-ice.

From Project Gutenberg

When the high wind blew off shore, there was no backswell, on account of the pack-ice to the north quelling the sea.

From Project Gutenberg

The north appeared to be filled with frozen sea though we could not be certain that it was not dense pack-ice.

From Project Gutenberg