Iceland

/[ˈaɪs.ln̩ʔd̚]/ name, noun

name, noun ·Uncommon ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    A land or region of icy terrain.

    "They are also drilling oil in the icelands up there, exactly like we are not. Where we think we cannot go, they are up in their icelands drilling great, great new oil production."

Proper Noun
  1. 1
    An island and country in the North Atlantic Ocean in Europe.

    "The good news headline from Donald Trump’s trip to Davos was that he seemed to rule out force for now in his urgent quest to acquire Greenland. The bad news: he started talking about Iceland as well."

Example

More examples

"Iceland used to belong to Denmark."

Etymology

Etymology 1

From Middle English Iseland, Island, Islond, Yslond, a calque of Old Norse Ísland, equivalent to ice + land. Replaced earlier Old Norse Snæland (literally “snowland”).

Etymology 2

From ice + land.

Related phrases

Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.