ice-breakingn.
/ˈʌɪsˌbreɪkɪŋ/, U.S. /ˈaɪsˌbreɪkɪŋ/ The action or process of breaking ice or of breaking through the ice (in various senses).
ΘΚΠ
the world > existence and causation > causation > initiating or causing to begin > [noun] > a beginning or first step
induction1597
instep1621
initiative1793
ice-breaking1804
baby step1825
1804 J. Denholm Hist. City of Glasgow & Suburbs (ed. 3) xiii. 437/1 (table) Expenditure... Ice-breaking.
1821 Providence (Rhode Island) Patriot 10 Oct. Mr. William Greene, of Alexandria, has invented an ‘Ice-breaking Machine’, calculated to break through ice of the thickness of six inches, at the rate of from three to four miles an hour, with the same power as an ordinary steam-boat.
1883 Great Internat. Fisheries Exhib. Catal. 362 Ice-breaking Boat..used in..sailing among the Ice.
1956 Nature 31 Mar. 600/2 The two expeditions will share a large ice-breaking sealer.
1970 Daily Tel. 21 Mar. 15 Canadian seal-hunting ships with ice-breaking capacity.
1998 Canad. Geographic Mar. 57/2 Observers speculate about a north-south link moving commodities and goods from the North American heartland; improved icebreaking to lengthen the shipping season; and expanded rail links.
2004 G. Behrendt & L. Tuccillo He's just not that into You 70 It's all good as long as you don't confuse ice-breaking for real intimacy.
This entry has been updated (OED Third Edition, December 2012; most recently modified version published online March 2022).
ice-breakingadj.
/ˈʌɪsˌbreɪkɪŋ/, U.S. /ˈaɪsˌbreɪkɪŋ/ That breaks (through) the ice. Frequently in extended use, esp.: that breaks through cold reserve or stiffness, facilitating conversation or social ease.
ΘΚΠ
the world > existence and causation > causation > initiating or causing to begin > [adjective]
initiatory1615
initiative1795
ice-breaking1824
breaking1853
the world > existence and causation > creation > destruction > breaking or cracking > [adjective] > breaking specific things
image-breaking1630
bone-breaking1644
ice-breaking1824
1824 Canad. Mag. Dec. 541 He accosted us all gaily, without any of that long ice-breaking conversation about the weather, which generally occupies the first half-hour of our stage-coach journeys.
1875 Geol. Mag. 12 441 Ice will evaporate at any temperature, forming vapour, which would pass into the fissures or fractures made by the ice breaking contact.
1968 F. Exley Fan's Notes ii. 46 I would fling myself into a chair, stick my Yello-Bole [pipe] into my jaw, and to their preliminary and ‘ice-breaking’ questions begin issuing a sequence of noises not unlike hog noises.
2007 Canad. Geographic Jan. 44/2 But not mentioned in the glossy Coast Guard brochures is the fact that when she arrived at the pole, the Russians had already been here in their nuclear-powered ice-breaking brute Yamal.
This entry has been updated (OED Third Edition, December 2012; most recently modified version published online March 2022).
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n.1804adj.1824- to have pepper in the nose
- to have personality
- to have pissed on a nettle
- to have pity
- to have pity of
- to have place
- to have pleasing to
- to have points
- to have price of
- to have price upon
- to have provision
- to have rap
- to have rather
- to have rats in one's garret
- to have reason
- to have record
- to have recourse to
- to have regard of
- to have regard to
- to have regard to or that
- to have relation to
- to have relations
- to have remembrance of
- to have repair
- to have repair to