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white bear

American  

noun

  1. polar bear.


white bear British  

noun

  1. another name for polar bear

"Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged" 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

Etymology

Origin of white bear

First recorded in 1590–1600

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:

“In white bear, you are trying to suppress ‘white bear’ itself, so you are thinking about ‘white bear.’

From Scientific American Oct. 19, 2022

In “East of the Sun and West of the Moon,” a Norwegian story, a father signs his daughter over to a large white bear in exchange for a promise of riches.

From The New Yorker Mar. 27, 2017

They’re known as pizzlies or grolars, and they’re a fusion of the Arctic white bear and their brown cousins.

From Washington Post May 23, 2016

They are tiny, blind and toothless, and they more closely resemble a pale rodent than a black and white bear.

From New York Times Aug. 22, 2015

Here and there a light flickered under a snow-thick roof, and Lyra thought she saw pale faces behind some of the windowpanes, and imagined their astonishment to see a child riding a great white bear.

From "The Golden Compass" by Philip Pullman

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