ice age
Americannoun
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a geologic period during which ice thickly covers vast masses of land.
astronomical phenomena related to the widespread glaciation of ice ages.
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Ice Age, the most recent of the earth’s many ice ages, occurring during the Pleistocene Epoch.
Our familiar continents were shaped quite differently before the Ice Age.
noun
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Any of several cold periods during which glaciers covered much of the Earth.
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Ice Age. The most recent glacial period, which occurred during the Pleistocene Epoch and ended about 10,000 years ago. During the Pleistocene Ice Age, great sheets of ice up to two miles thick covered most of Greenland, Canada, and the northern United States as well as northern Europe and Russia.
Etymology
Origin of ice age
First recorded in 1870–75
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.