Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun A house made of blocks of snow, such as those built by the Inuit.
  • noun A dome-shaped structure or building.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun Among the Eskimos, a dome-shaped hut, usually built of shaped blocks of hard snow, with a window made of a slab of ice.
  • noun Hence — The excavation which a seal makes in the snow over its breathing-hole.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun An Eskimo snow house.
  • noun (Zoöl.) A cavity, or excavation, made in the snow by a seal, over its breathing hole in the ice.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun A dome-shaped Inuit shelter, constructed of blocks cut from snow.
  • noun zoology A cavity, or excavation, made in the snow by a seal, over its breathing hole in the sea ice.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun an Eskimo hut; usually built of blocks (of sod or snow) in the shape of a dome

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Inuit iglu, house, igloo.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Inuktitut iglu (ᐃᒡᓗ).

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Examples

Comments

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  • Its Inuktitut meaning is "dwelling" in general, not specifically a snowhouse, although that is its meaning in English.

    December 23, 2008

  • What you use to repair a broken ig.

    February 25, 2009