floe

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floe

a sheet of floating ice, as on the surface of the sea

Not to be confused with:

flow – to move along in a stream; to circulate; to issue or proceed from a source

floe

(flō)

1. An ice floe.

2. A segment that has separated from such an ice mass.

[Probably from Norwegian flo, layer, from Old Norse flō; see plāk- in Indo-European roots.]

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright © 2016 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

floe

(fləʊ)

(Physical Geography) See ice floe

[C19: probably from Norwegian flo slab, layer, from Old Norse; see flaw¹]

Collins English Dictionary – Complete and Unabridged, 12th Edition 2014 © HarperCollins Publishers 1991, 1994, 1998, 2000, 2003, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2011, 2014

floe

(floʊ)

n.

1. a sheet of floating ice, chiefly on the surface of the sea, smaller than an ice field.

2. a detached floating portion of such a sheet.

Also called ice floe .

[1810–20; perhaps < Norwegian flo layer (compare Old Norse flō layer, level); c. Old English flōh piece, flagstone; compare flaw¹]

floe

(flō)

A mass or sheet of floating ice.

The American Heritage® Student Science Dictionary, Second Edition. Copyright © 2014 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

Floe

a field or pack of ice or similar substance.

Examples: cloud floes, 1886; ice floe, 1817.

ThesaurusAntonymsRelated WordsSynonymsLegend:

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Noun

floe - a flat mass of ice (smaller than an ice field) floating at sea

ice floe

ice mass - a large mass of ice

Translations

banchisa banco di ghiaccio

floe

[fləʊ] N (= ice floe) → témpano m de hielo

Collins Spanish Dictionary - Complete and Unabridged 8th Edition 2005 © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1971, 1988 © HarperCollins Publishers 1992, 1993, 1996, 1997, 2000, 2003, 2005

floe

[ˈfləʊ] n (also ice floe) → morceau m de banquise

Collins English/French Electronic Resource. © HarperCollins Publishers 2005

floe

n → Treibeis nt, → Eisscholle f

Collins German Dictionary – Complete and Unabridged 7th Edition 2005. © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1980 © HarperCollins Publishers 1991, 1997, 1999, 2004, 2005, 2007

floe

[fləʊ] n (also ice floe) → banchisa

Collins Italian Dictionary 1st Edition © HarperCollins Publishers 1995

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References in classic literature ?

The edge of the floe off which the seal were used to fish in winter lay perhaps twenty miles beyond this barrier, and out of reach of the Tununirmiut.

Then they could see the ridged and furrowed surface of the floe tipped and laced with strange colours--red, copper, and bluish; but in the ordinary starlight everything turned to one frost-bitten gray.

Also, the strong current which sets east out of Lancaster Sound carried with it mile upon mile of what they call pack-ice--rough ice that has not frozen into fields; and this pack was bombarding the floe at the same time that the swell and heave of the storm-worked sea was weakening and undermining it.

If the floe broke up there would be no more waiting and suffering.

The Thing moved off slowly and clumsily across the ridges, heading always toward the westward and the land, and they followed, while the growling thunder at the edge of the floe rolled nearer and nearer.

That showed that the floe was being jammed home against the iron cliffs of Bylot's Island, the land to the southward behind them.

And land it was that the eight-legged, limping Thing had led them to--some granite- tipped, sand-beached islet off the coast, shod and sheathed and masked with ice so that no man could have told it from the floe, but at the bottom solid earth, and not shifting ice!

When we have eaten those we will all follow the seal on the floe."

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I was heard aft, and we managed to clear the sunken floe which had come all the way from the Southern ice-cap to have a try at our unsuspecting lives.

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Then as if I had in sober truth rescued her from an Alpine height or an Arctic floe, I busied myself with nothing but lighting the gas and starting the fire.

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And as upon the invasion of their valleys, the frosty Swiss have retreated to their mountains; so, hunted from the savannas and glades of the middle seas, the whale-bone whales can at last resort to their Polar citadels, and diving under the ultimate glassy barriers and walls there, come up among icy fields and floes; and in a charmed circle of everlasting December, bid defiance to all pursuit from man.

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But the fear of sinking passed away like their vigour, like their hopes; the shocks of the floes knocking against the ship's side could not rouse them from their apathy: and the Borgmester Dahl drifted out again un harmed into open water.

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