Library / English Dictionary

FREEZING

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

 I. (noun) 

Sense 1

Meaning:

The withdrawal of heat to change something from a liquid to a solid

Synonyms:

freeze; freezing

Classified under:

Nouns denoting natural processes

Hypernyms ("freezing" is a kind of...):

chilling; cooling; temperature reduction (the process of becoming cooler; a falling temperature)

phase change; phase transition; physical change; state change (a change from one state (solid or liquid or gas) to another without a change in chemical composition)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "freezing"):

freeze-drying; lyophilisation; lyophilization (a method of drying food or blood plasma or pharmaceuticals or tissue without destroying their physical structure; material is frozen and then warmed in a vacuum so that the ice sublimes)

frost; icing (the formation of frost or ice on a surface)

Derivation:

freeze (change to ice)

freeze (cause to freeze)

freeze (change from a liquid to a solid when cold)

freeze (be very cold, below the freezing point)

 II. (verb) 

Sense 1

-ing form of the verb freeze

Credits

 Context examples: 

A freezing horror took possession of me.

(His Last Bow, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

It may include surgery, radiation therapy, freezing or heat therapy, or laser therapy.

(Eye Cancer, NIH)

The process of freezing one or more embryos to save them for future use.

(Embryo cryopreservation, NCI Dictionary)

The process of cooling and storing cells, tissues, or organs at very low or freezing temperatures to save them for future use.

(Cryopreservation, NCI Dictionary)

A substance that is used to protect from the effects of freezing, largely by preventing large ice crystals from forming.

(Cryoprotective Agent, NCI Thesaurus)

Repeated high-resolution observations made by NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) indicate the gullies on Mars' surface are primarily formed by the seasonal freezing of carbon dioxide, not liquid water.

(NASA spacecraft observes further evidence of dry ice gullies on Mars, NASA)

In the summer months, when air temperatures rise above freezing, the surfaces of these ice shelves are susceptible to melting.

(Surface lakes cause Antarctic ice shelves to ‘flex’, The Titi Tudorancea Bulletin)

Leaving the pails standing in the trail, he walked up and down, rapidly, to keep from freezing, for the frost bit into the flesh like fire.

(Love of Life and Other Stories, by Jack London)

“Certainly,” said Hal, with freezing politeness, taking hold of the gee-pole with one hand and swinging his whip from the other.

(The Call of the Wild, by Jack London)

I was so fully aware that only serious moods and occupations were acceptable, that in his presence every effort to sustain or follow any other became vain: I fell under a freezing spell.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)