ice-cold
/ˈaɪskəʊld/
"ice-cold" is a 7-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“ice-cold” is uncommon English (outside the top frequency list), classed as an adjective. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- Unranked
- below top-frequency English
- 8
- letters
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Very cold.
Corpus desk
Index EN-ice-cold · ice-cold · English
ice-cold · unranked · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-UNRANKED Unranked
- LEN-LONG 8 letters
- VOW-3 3 vowels
- CONFUS-0 No pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-THIN "I" thin
- PHOTO-UNK Peer pending
Read with this headword: Spelling guide for this pattern
Desk codes from Wiktionary headword shape, FrequencyWords rank tier, confusable-pair count, generated misspelling depth, letter-cohort book size, and photo-finish peer. Not a difficulty grade.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | ice-cold |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Adjective |
| IPA | /ˈaɪskəʊld/ |
| Letters | 8 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Long-tail rank of “ice-cold” in English
Rare enough to double-check
ice-cold is uncommon English outside the top frequency list, classed as anadjective, transcribed /ˈaɪskəʊld/. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. 3 senses are on record.
The misspelling generator found no plausible variants for ice-cold, since its letter pattern doesn't lend itself to common typo substitutions. No confusable counterpart is on file for this word, since nothing in our dataset looks or sounds close enough to cause mix-ups.
Etymologically, the entry records: From Middle English *is-cold, from Old English īsċeald; equivalent to ice + cold. Cognate with Saterland Frisian ieskoold (“ice-cold”), West Frisian iiskâld (“ice-cold”), Dutch ijskoud (“ice-cold”), Afrikaans yskoud (“ice-cold”), German Low German ieskold (… The correct English form is ice-cold, spelled I-C-E---C-O-L-D.
Definition
- 1Very cold.
- 2Of a person, look, or behavior: without emotion; distant; (sometimes) silently disapproving.
- 3Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see ice, cold: as cold as ice or nearly so (close to a freezing point).
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how ice-cold appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
Near-synonyms: stone cold, cold as a well-digger's arse; see also Thesaurus:cold
I'm going to put my coat back on — I'm ice-cold again!
Etymology
From Middle English *is-cold, from Old English īsċeald; equivalent to ice + cold. Cognate with Saterland Frisian ieskoold (“ice-cold”), West Frisian iiskâld (“ice-cold”), Dutch ijskoud (“ice-cold”), Afrikaans yskoud (“ice-cold”), German Low German ieskold (“ice-cold”), German eiskalt (“ice-cold”), Yiddish אײַזקאַלט (ayzkalt, “ice-cold”), Danish iskold (“ice-cold”), Swedish iskall (“ice-cold”), Norwegian iskald (“ice-cold”), Faroese ísakaldur (“ice-cold”), Icelandic ískaldur (“ice-cold”).
This word in other languages
Definitions, pronunciation, and etymology for this entry are drawn from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org structured extract (CC BY-SA). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.