ice sheetn.
/ˈʌɪs ʃiːt/, U.S. /ˈaɪs ˌʃit/ A sheet or extensive layer of ice; spec. any of those which covered a large area of the northern hemisphere during the glacial period.
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the world > the earth > water > ice > body of ice > [noun] > sheet
shield1624
shota1650
ice raft1818
ice sheet1831
ice shelf1838
1831 Morning Post 22 Aug. 4/1 The influence of the summer sun is now completely exhausted in the Polar regions, and process of congelation begins in all its violence, ice sheets an inch thick being the produce of a single night.
1891 R. Ball Ice Age 168 In future periods the ice-sheets will again return and desolate those regions which now contain the most civilized nations of the earth.
1915 Jrnl. Geol. (Chicago) 23 38 Two ice sheets of subcontinental proportions remain in existence, the Greenland and Antarctic.
1958 A. Marshack World in Space iv. 67 The great ice sheet began to recede 10,000–11,000 years ago.
1984 A. C. Duxbury & A. Duxbury Introd. World's Oceans iii. 77 Parts of North America and Scandinavia continue to rise as the continents readjust to the lost weight of the ice-sheets that receded.
2008 Independent 20 Mar. 2/1 The rapidly increasing melting of ice across the globe, in glaciers and in the land-based and marine ice sheets of the Arctic and the Antarctic.
This entry has been updated (OED Third Edition, December 2012; most recently modified version published online March 2022).
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