ˈice-foot
[According to quot. 1856, ad. Da. isfod, in same sense: the ice forms a foot or base to the cliff or high land.]
a. A belt or ledge of ice extending along the coast in Arctic regions (cf. ice-belt), caused by the shore-water being largely mixed with snow and so freezing at a higher temperature than the salter water of the deep sea. b. Also applied to the margin of an ice-floe: see quot. 1897.
| 1856 Kane Arct. Expl. I. xv. 175 The name is adopted..from the Danish ‘Eis-fod’ to designate a zone of ice which extends along the shore from the untried North..almost to the Arctic circle. Ibid. II. App. ii. 303 The ledge of ice which, under the name of ‘ice-foot’, I have before described as clinging to the shore. 1877 A. H. Green Phys. Geol. iii. §2. 109 A belt of ice known as coast ice or the ice foot. 1882 Geikie Text-bk. Geol. iii. ii. ii. §6 This shelf, known as the ice-foot, serves as a platform on which the abundant débris..gathers at the foot of the cliff. 1897 tr. Nansen's Farthest North II. ix. 452 note, The ice-foot is the part of a floe which often projects into the water under the surface. It is formed through the thawing of the upper part of the ice in the summer-time by the warmer surface layer of the sea. |