ice-free
Americanadjective
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free of ice.
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(of a harbor or other body of water) free at all times of the year of any ice that would impede navigation.
Etymology
Origin of ice-free
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.
Noting that its waters are ice-free thanks to the Gulf Stream, the Norwegian consultancy Rystad Energy has, for example, suggested excluding the Barents Sea from the EU's definition of the Arctic.
From Barron's ● Mar. 14, 2026
Only 20% of Greenland is ice-free, the Center for Strategic & International Studies said in a report published earlier this month.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jan. 23, 2026
“It means that when these glaciers die off, we will be the first humans to see ice-free peaks in Yosemite,” said Andrew Jones, a researcher at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, who led the study.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 1, 2025
The decline is tied to the amount of time the bay is now ice-free, a period that is getting longer as the climate warms.
From BBC ● Dec. 17, 2024
In a crisply argued paper in Science in 1964, Haynes drew attention to the correlation between the birth of “an ice-free, trans-Canadian corridor” and the “abrupt appearance of Clovis artifacts some 700 years later.”
From "1491" by Charles C. Mann
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.
