Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- noun A tapering spike of ice formed by the freezing of dripping or falling water.
- noun Informal An aloof or emotionally unresponsive person.
from The Century Dictionary.
- noun A pendent mass of ice tapering downward to a point, formed by the freezing of drops of water or other liquid flowing down from the place of attachment.
- noun In heraldry, same as
goutte or drop, but reversed, with the point downward. Comparegutté reversed , under gutté.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- noun A pendent, and usually conical, mass of ice, formed by freezing of dripping water.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun A
spear -shape ofice .
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- noun ice resembling a pendent spear, formed by the freezing of dripping water
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
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Examples
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Come January, they were selling off what they call icicle lights, but we call fairy lights, for about 50 cents each.
Telegraph.co.uk - Telegraph online, Daily Telegraph and Sunday Telegraph Christopher Middleton 2011
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Everyone knows what an icicle is and what it looks like, so this research is very accessible.
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Her hilarious and demented crafts projects -- like the meat helmet, the everybody in icicle lights campaign, and the stink-beetle cross stitch -- never cease to amaze me.
Boing Boing: October 28, 2001 - November 3, 2001 Archives 2001
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SHAPIRO: Was there ever a moment that you were crafting a tune and you thought: If only he had used the word icicle instead of snowflake, this would be so much easier, or if only this were the chorus instead of that?
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SHAPIRO: Was there ever a moment that you were crafting a tune and you thought: If only he had used the word icicle instead of snowflake, this would be so much easier, or if only this were the chorus instead of that?
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Sheikha dazzles east London in fur boots with 'icicle' heels on tour of Olympic stadium
Sheikha Mozah outdoes Lady Gaga with Arctic-inspired footwear David Batty 2010
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When there is nothing left of the winter snow but these ridges behind the stone walls, and a dingy drift here and there in a hollow, or in the woods, Winter has virtually resigned the icicle which is his sceptre.
Monday Photo Shoot: Bye-Bye Winter? « Adventures in Juggling 2007
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When there is nothing left of the winter snow but these ridges behind the stone walls, and a dingy drift here and there in a hollow, or in the woods, Winter has virtually resigned the icicle which is his sceptre.
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Where you see white blare, like a loud trumpet, in real life is all lacy "icicle" lights.
joyful, joyful asakiyume 2006
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And when they wanted to write down _tung_ "a beam," instead of "icicle," they put the obvious indicator 木 "wood," thus 棟.
China and the Chinese Herbert Allen Giles 1890
evenstar commented on the word icicle
I like this word. It's all prickly-beautiful.
February 24, 2009
TNH commented on the word icicle
IMO, "icicle" has the best set of alternate spellings I know of. Check out its etymological entry on this site. Not all the forms listed there are English, but almost all of them are recognizably the same word.
June 10, 2009
hernesheir commented on the word icicle
"What importance do they attach to?", in the odd shorthand of railroad telegraphy. --US Railway Association, Standard Cipher Code, 1906.
January 24, 2013
oroboros commented on the word icicle
Eavesdropper? (crossword puzzle clue/answer)
April 20, 2013
alexz commented on the word icicle
in looking up more ice words , came across 5 pages of icicle variants
https://books.google.ca/books?id=pPQoAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA143
Transactions of the American Philological Association, Volumes 24-26 1893
February 8, 2017
Logophile77 commented on the word icicle
If an icicle is like a stalactite, what then would a stalagmite be?
December 18, 2017
natalie_portmanteaux commented on the word icicle
Icicle, a portmanteau of ice and sickle.
March 8, 2020